


All These Things I Have Taken For Granted

by Upupanyway



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Externalized homophobia, F/M, Gen, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, everyone is ineffectual and stupid about it, mary sues dd, matt/foggy is endgame, people being friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:22:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21897367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Upupanyway/pseuds/Upupanyway
Summary: Matt deals with the aftermath of nearly killing someone.
Relationships: Franklin "Foggy" Nelson/Karen Page, Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, mary walker & karen page
Comments: 36
Kudos: 37





	1. Prologue

The onslaught of angry hands and accusatory voices grappled and clawed at him incessantly. It was torrential and violent, not out of rage, but curiosity. He was being shoved and prodded every which way, and he couldn’t quite pick up the individual voices. The bodies moved raucously, fighting towards the lounge window where something significant must have happened.

Then, there was the unmistakable patter of tennis shoes on tile and the stern instruction of a nurse on her way to stop the commotion.

She urged the patients back to their rooms, shoving past the crowd towards the site of the incident. Some of the patients in the hospital made their reluctant way back to their rooms, realizing that something momentous had happened, and that the denouement was now upon them. Others watched on, waiting sadistically for someone to be punished, or else they simply grieved in their shock.

A large and dense object had fallen out the window of the fifteen-storey hospital, and the ugly crack reverberated in Daredevil’s ears. He had never heard anything like it, but it was instantly recognizable, jarring against the confused voices of the other residents of the hall and the stillness of the night below them. It was all he could hear now, the memory of it taking his senses.

“What happened?” one of the patients, Bill, asked. His was a raspy, aged voice in the white noise clamouring of the lounge.

“Someone fell,” another voice said, rough and quiet. “It was Mary, I think.”

Daredevil’s gloved hands were still grasping at the air outside the window. He had only been a half second too slow, now a body was shattered on the ground below him, and he was frozen, unable to help.

Finally, the nurse fought her way to him, and he was released from whatever guilt-ridden spell that had possessed him. Scrambling, he reached for his billy clubs and followed Mary out the window, though he swung a wide pendulum instead of landing.

“Okay, everyone, settle down,” ordered the harried nurse, looking around for anyone that might have been of use. She was surrounded by witnesses, and no one would dare utter the words of finality that made real the death of one of their own. They retreated now, some of them clinging to each other for a modicum of comfort amidst the fear. “Will anyone tell me what happened?”

It was Bill who spoke up. “Some guy broke into our floor. We were just trying to get him back out.”

“And then Mary fell,” someone cut in, a young woman who couldn’t have been older than eighteen. She sounded small and sad. And with her words, as if there had been a floodgate opened, a chorus of others joined in, explaining how some guy in a devil costume and weapons had flown in and caused a raucous with Kevin.

Kevin was one of the non-verbal ones. He enjoyed piecing together jigsaw puzzles for long hours of the day, dragging his compatriots in to show off whenever he completed one. His was a quiet presence, but it was familiar and constant in the ward.

A fight had almost broken out when a newcomer accidentally knocked a few pieces off of his workspace. Tensions were rising, though the perpetrator refused to retaliate. Kevin was never mad for long, though when he was, he was intensely so. 

Daredevil, making his runs past the building, did not know any of this, of course. When he had landed neatly in the fifteenth-floor common area, he had been expecting an easy solution, a slap on the wrist perhaps, and a pleasant, uninjured night back home. Instead, someone had fallen out of a window.

No, he had accidentally shoved someone out of a window.

He had shoved someone, someone named Mary, who had been living a life that was her own, offending no one and not being violent to any known capacity, out of a window. The streets reeked of spilled blood and it was Daredevil’s doing. He had made a grave mistake in visiting the hospital, and he would have to deal with the aftermath.

“Don’t put your hands on our boy!” someone had shouted at him, when Daredevil tried to break up the fight. An older woman was barrelling towards him, catching him in an uncareful headlock. “He ain’t all there, you gotta be careful with him!” More puzzle pieces fell to the ground in an unhappy sprinkling.

A group of others joined in, backing Daredevil into a wall, and he inched towards the window, feeling thoroughly unwelcome.

“Someone harassing Kevin?” someone asked, standing up from a chess match and upturning the pieces.

“Watch it, Bill,” his opponent warned. She bent down to pick up the game, collecting them in her hands, though she moved slowly and limply. “You’re not allowed to get angry again, remember?”

“I’m watching out for Kev, Missy. We gotta look out for our own. God knows no one else will, and then folks like this bozo’re gonna assume we can’t fight back.”

The moments next moments bled into each other in a haze of limbs and indignation.

And then, Daredevil was on a roof across the street and praying for something miraculous to occur. He bargained with God, something he had grown up doing, something that felt reluctantly familiar. He should have known that his new hobby would reap consequences like this, and he should have known it when he had started. He should have had more faith in professionals, as Foggy had. He should have known when to pick fights and when to read into a situation that he need not intervene.

Lord, give him wisdom, give him resilience, and forgive him for the horrid conclusions of the day, he prayed.

He whispered, “amen,” and when he did so, something miraculous did occur.

The body that had fallen gasped out, coughing against her seizing lungs. Slowly, the angles of her fractures repaired themselves, and she cried out in pain, staggering back into the hospital and banging her body against it, a marionette movement.

One of the nurses eventually came to collect her, and she collapsed onto the floor, crying out again. And then, when she was laid down on a stretcher and wheeled off deeper and deeper into that unkowable hospital, Matt stood up shakily. He did not yet feel absolution, but his guilt was more hopeful than it had been moments ago, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He may not be forgiven yet, but she was thankfully alive. Gloriously so, and for the time being it was more than enough.

He scrambled back onto the street eventually, walking unthinkingly to the corner where he had hidden his day clothes. He changed quickly between tall dumpsters, in the shadowed dark between buildings where all the denizens were bustling about in their nighttime routines. The brick walls contained some semblance of normalcy, and it coloured Matt. He felt himself slowly return to who he was between the times he was the Devil, when he acted out the wretched and most cursed violent tendencies he usually tried to suppress. With the shedding of the Devil, he became Matthew Murdock, a man who was a pacifist, who was guiltless, and who was loved.

A racoon scurried past him, a coyote howled in the distance, and he was among them.

Slowly, he made his way home, gripping his cane tightly around his haunted fingers, to where his roommate was likely asleep on top of his books. Their last final was in a week, and the bar exam soon after. He should have been studying, and now he regrets that he hadn’t been. Shamefully, he mourned the time he had spent outside, being less than unproductive, being detrimental to the health and safety to hospital patients, no less. 

These days, he grew increasingly aware of the wedge between his two selves. It felt like he was living two lives: in one, he was studious and wise, loved beyond his deserving, and respected amongst his peers. In the other, he was no more than a feral beast reigning in his animalistic need to hunt and plague those he was trying to help. He knew which one he wanted to be his true self, and he knew, with great shame, which one he feared falling into. It was a tightrope walk, and he felt that one false step would send him tumbling into the abyss below. Tonight, he had been caught off balance. Severely so. He could not make this mistake again. He would not be redeemed the next time. He knew it with extreme certainty.

Shakily, he reached his door, hoping for some comfort and knowing he didn’t deserve it. He could hear Foggy snoring from blocks away. He found some respite in the knowledge that at least this meant he would not know of Matt’s transgressions.

He shook himself free of such moroseities for the night. He was tired and chilled, and there was a boy on the other side of the door who expected the best from him. There was a boy he wanted to be better for. If he could not become the person Foggy thought he was, he would wear the facade for the both of them, and he would be cleansed of all the filth that he was when Foggy turned the other way.

He turned the key as quietly as he could, but Foggy’s fitful rest broke anyway.

“Matt? ‘Zat you?” he called sleepily.

“Yeah, sorry to wake you.”

“Have you been at the gym this whole time? Get some rest, you weirdo,” Foggy chuckled, shuffling into his bed. Matt approached him in the night. Foggy was a magnet to him, warm and comforting in a night that had been everything but. “Woah, you look terrible. Come here.” Foggy reached for him by the wrist and dragged him down to his twin-sized bed. It was uncommon for the pair of them, but it wasn’t odd, either. Generally, they would be drunk or miserable when they shared a bed, but clearly, Foggy thought it was necessary.

“Finals are almost over, buddy. Stick it out for a few more days,” Foggy calmed, resting an arm across Matt’s chest, though he made no other moves to shuffle closer or entwine their stressed bodies together. There was an unspoken rule between them, of course, and Matt was determined not to cross that boundary. It would scare Foggy away, and he couldn’t bear that, especially when he needed comfort.

“You smell like sweat,” Foggy mumbled finally, and still, Matt could not bring himself to speak. So he slept, unwashed, refusing to move, lest he be shunned from the warmth of Foggy’s proximity forever.


	2. Chapter 1

On a windy day sometime in late July, a pair of rowdy boys clinked their glasses by the dim bar lights of New York. They were in a quiet little nook in a loud sort of bar, and they were smiling very hard at each other. They spoke grandly between themselves, as if their entire world consisted entirely of the two of them, warm and languid and relaxed for the first time in a long while. It had been a rough few months, but they had both become lawyers in the last seven hours and they were feeling high on the sense of possibility.

"We really did it, huh, Matty?" slurred, one of them. His name was Foggy Nelson, and he had never felt special or fulfilled for much of his life, but in these moments, her felt like it could happen one day. So he smiled until his cheeks felt like splitting and he leaned in ever further into his best friend’s personal space, burrowing a home there in his drunken comfort.

"Sure did. I told you you had nothing to worry about," Matt Murdock said. He was feeling giddy and selfsure. He had passed the bar. He had reunited children with their thankful parents. He had been allowed to quietly sink further and further into his best friend, as relief washed over the both of them in long waves. He had done these all in the span of a day, and his accomplishments as of late felt thankfully plentiful.

Foggy's hair tickled his nose enough that he felt the lurch of a sneeze, though it did not come. He was breathless from the fullness of the evening. The low buzz of the lighting, the sticky air emanating from the bar, and Foggy’s breath, full of onions and cilantro and emmentaler cheese. These things were not beautiful, but they were made beautiful because they existed in a beautiful moment.

They stayed in each others' haze until it was time to close. And when the bar did finally close, they held tightly to their mostly-empty Irish whiskeys, which they were given as congratulations by the bartender (who acted unaffectionate, but Foggy had always been certain they would break her one day). They clung, tighter still, to each other in the cooling air as it nipped at their ruddy cheeks. The street was nearly empty then. A cat skittered across the street at the sound of their jubilance. A pigeon shifted uncomfortably on its wire perch. A flyer for custom signage scratched the concrete before taking off in the chilled wind, narrowly missing Foggy's swaying head.

He followed the movement, and when he looked up, he saw his friend, lit by the last vestiges of streetlight and the moon. They further hollowed his sharp cheekbones, they highlighted the glint of his teeth. For a moment, Matthew Murdock seemed ferocious and insatiable. He looked willing and able to consume the world and Foggy with it. Desperately, he was struck with the desire to follow him, wherever it would lead him.

"To Nelson and Murdock," Foggy cheered, clinking his bottle to its partner.

"Murdock and Nelson," Matt corrected with a joyous smirk. "It's alphabetical."

"Nelson and Murdock sounds better, though, doesn't it?"

He had expected a teasing fight. Instead, Matt sighed dreamily and turned his head towards the moon, bathing his features in ethereal intent. "Yeah, I guess it does," he conceded easily.

Foggy breathed in for some moments, not wanting to break what they had. He closed his eyes and started to narrate.

"There are so many stars out tonight," Foggy said.

"It's the middle of New York! Somehow I doubt that," Matt laughed, breaking his stoicism.

"No, they're there. You just can't see them," Foggy said surely. He nudged Matt to keep them walking.

"No kidding."

"They're there," Foggy said again. "Sometimes you just gotta have faith."

Matt smiled at him tenderly, and lifted his bottle. "Then on such an auspicious night, lit by these propitious and abundant stars, let's celebrate the coalition of Murdock and Nelson. 'Til dissolution do we part."

On such a quiet night, there was nothing to ring back at them but the sound of the glass on glass. A pact sealed. Then, there was their cheering laughter. Then, there was their excited and happy heartbeats.

-

They promised things to each other often. Oftentimes, they were drunk to the point that neither would begrudge a few or many falling to the wayside. There were minutiae and pipe dreams alike, neither particularly significant compared to the fervor with which they were devoted to each other. Neither of them expected this particular promise to amount to much.

But they got hired in offices ten minutes apart, which was pretty close, to be sure, but so much of their days were spent without the other. A week into their work, Foggy decided he needed some assurance that something would change eventually, and he longed for some kind of promise that they would be reunited at some point, that they would be able to be a joined unit against whatever would try to shake them.

And so there remained a strange force that tugged at Foggy, and it possessed him for such a long time that it felt like more than capricious whim. He willed himself to follow through, and after a steel-cored decision and some money exchanging hands, Foggy surprised Matt with a parcel, bringing his partner’s hands to the shiny metal and helping him run his fingers over a plaque. And it had felt so right, those names next to each other. It felt significant.

"Nelson and Murdock it is," Matt said, hugging the sign to his chest as if it were a precious thing. Something more tangible than a promise.

-

With a noble sort of resignation, they moved into their own spaces as soon as they could. It was the adult thing to do, and between their shaky but steadily growing careers and earning potentials, it made little sense to share a studio apartment with only one bed frame. Both new apartments were smaller than the one they had shared together, and nearly double the cost, but they were also both cleaner, there were fewer rats scurrying between the walls. They had the future to think of, and Foggy wanted to be married one day, something that wouldn’t be possible if he stuck by his college roommate so closely.

He figured he would always find reasons to stay, like the way Matt would hum from the door when Foggy cooked something hearty and savoury, or when the light would splay across the apartment floor in the early mornings, and leave streaks of warmth between their sleeping bodies. Worse, still, Matt was coming home with an increasing number of bumps and cuts, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to respect his wishes not to mention it.

They still met up often; they were only a few blocks from each other. They ate meals together. They went to events together. On Fridays, they kept to a rigid schedule where Foggy would leave his work five minutes early, smiling at all the other junior attorneys on his way out. They would smile back, assuming that he had a lady love and they had designated Fridays as their date nights. Matt, in a similar manner, would stay five minutes late at his broom closet office so as to time his exits to coincide with Foggy at the door, breathing hard from his walking a few blocks over. People at his work had assumed Foggy was a carer of sorts, and they greeted him with an approving sort of grace. One time, Dr. Hill (who had been very proud of her law doctorate and her position as partner, which she had earned less than a year after receiving said doctorate) covertly snuck Matt a small bag of pastries to share between the two of them, simply because Foggy had "seemed really polite."

So, they left, arm in arm, to visit the available office spaces.

"And what sort of business are you fellas in?" The realtor asked them, clicking her clean stilettos on the hardwood floor of a small but sturdy office.

"We're partners in law, ma'am," Foggy answered happily, taking in the chipping paint and outdated trim along the walls. Still, it had a charm about it.

The place was quite threadbare, but there was an operating fax machine by the wall, and two whole desks pushed together in an L by the corner. It was small, but it was functional, and they would be paying out of pocket. Having even a partially furnished place definitely helped.

Matt walked around, feeling the slightly grimy glass, the cool metal of the bathroom doorknob. He even made it to the little kitchenette, which was an ugly teal colour that hadn't been in style at any point in the decade.

"Does the fridge work?" He asked, opening the door to a low humming and a gust of cool air.

"Yes. And the stove. And the oven under it," the realtor smiled brightly. “Everything works," she said with a certain desperation.

Matt turned it on, just to be sure, and while it sputtered and coughed, both did, in fact, work. They would have to replace the units eventually, but the wiring in the office was still good.

The realtor breathed a sigh of relief and turned again to Foggy, who was, in her estimate, the less fussy of the pair.

"Can I get a ballpark of how much it would be?" he asked.

"To rent or own?"

"To own."

And miraculously, she pronounced a number that was within their range, a rare thing for commercial properties in New York, regardless of where.

"We'll take it,”declared Matt from the kitchen, sniffing the pack of yogurt that was left there.

"Oh!" she gasped, clearly as surprised as any one of them. "Great, great, I'll talk to the owner and get the papers ready. Will you be available next week to discuss the purchase?"

Matt smiled wider than he intended to. "Hell, I'll be available tomorrow, if you want us here. Thank you, Ms. Dichter."

"Sounds, perfect. I'll contact you folks later," she said excitedly. She made a note in her dollar-store agenda book and put it away in her bag. "It's been a pleasure, gentlemen."

"No, no. Thank you," Foggy said. He grabbed for Matt's arm and started guiding him out the door. Matt's grin was as wide as a canyon, and Foggy suspected his head was just as empty.

When they were outside, he lowered his voice his at his partner. "Are you sure this is the place you want? You should have seen it. It wasn't exactly the Ritz."

"Talk like that when we have money for the Ritz," Matt retaliated. "From my perspective, it was sturdy and functional, and it was spectacularly priced."

"It was ugly," Foggy pouted.

"So are half your ties," he pointed out. He had already set his mind. Stubborn man that he was, he had to fight for it, now.

"There's no shame in renting a place. We're flat out of money if we put in a down payment now."

"But we'll have our own place. We can fix it up, Foggy. Really make it our own. And it's not like we have plans to separate anytime soon, right?" Matt asked with intent. He turned to face the other man, though he didn't need to because Foggy squirmed more when he felt watched.

He frowned at Matt until they reached the outside of the building. It was only six blocks from Fogwell's Gym, which Matt's father had frequented a lot in his too-short life. The air felt acutely familiar and homey to him, despite the rat piss and tobacco in the air. Even the sewage below and the alcohol base of bad perfume from the upper buildings couldn't dampen Matt's resolve. He felt at home.

"Fine," sighed Foggy, stopping at the top of the stairs. "We'll take it. But my father isn't going to be very happy with me, and we're going to have to take in clients the minute we open," he warned.

Matt merely laughed giddily, happy that things were going his way. "It's your inheritance. You can do with it what you want. If your old man starts giving you any trouble for it, I'll show him what's what."

Foggy groaned and leaned forward to rest his forehead on Matt's shoulder. He rubbed at his temples. "Don't beat up my father. His money put us both through law school and it's letting us open our own practice."

"You'll inherit more if he dies," Matt commented. He was dark like that at times, and he joked about dying fathers to come to terms with himself. It alleviated some of the guilt he felt at his hefty inheritance from his father's last match as a boxer. Half of it had been donated to the local orphanage and the other half lay untouched in his savings, slowly growing, a reminder that Jack Murdock could provide for his son.

Foggy laughed. Whether out of courtesy or nerves, he could not truly say. It would be risky, as many business ventures were. It would take a lot of trust and communication between them. Not merely as friends, but real business partners. It was a level of intimacy that had not yet felt until just then.

Matt reached out and ran a hand along the wall facing the street. It was dirty, but he felt so strongly the desire for his name in that bare spot, to become part of the Hell’s Kitchen scenery in a way that mattered. In a way his father would be proud of.

Foggy watched on. He knew that Matt had grown up around these parts, and he wondered how much Matt remembered of his childhood. He wondered if Matt had ever come across this very building, if he would have known he would want to set up shop here. He wondered how much of these streets Matt took with him. Matt was handsome and sharply dressed more often than not nowadays, but sometimes Foggy would catch him with a white-knuckled rage that wealth weathered out of the more fortunate. Sometimes, he would see Matt’s reluctance to throw things away, and sometimes, he would see Matt’s abysmal purchasing choices.

His knuckles were bruised as he ran his palm on the stone. It was only for a second, but when Foggy noticed, it was hard not to keep noticing. But fretting was for mothers and wives, so he voiced his worries only through laced sarcasm. Foggy was a grown man, and that was his pittance.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Foggy asked him.

"Yes," Matt answered without an ounce of hesitation. It made Foggy jealous that his friend was so decisive. Matt could know in an instant what he wanted, and Foggy would pine and stew for days regretting his ice cream purchases.

“Then it’s ours,” Foggy concluded. He put his hands in his pockets for something to do when he was hit by the force of Matt’s real smile. The one he sometimes got when Foggy did something particularly nice for him. He brought out his dimples, which many people didn’t realize Matt had. Foggy tried not to bask in it, lest he develop a dependence on it like some addict. As a resource, it was too scarce to hedge his bets on.

“Foggy Nelson, I could kiss you,” Matt half-joked, and nearly cringed at himself. He found that he was always joking about these things. He was always half-joking.

So Foggy chuckled and clapped him on the back. He said, “Okay, sure. But you’re buying me a drink first. I won’t have decent people think I’m a floozy,” and he stared towards a greasy dinner spot that was not particularly cheap. Matt could hardly stand any of the colourful menu items, but he liked the way Foggy would hum when he ate the most obnoxious foods, and really, the headache was a small price to pay to have Foggy happy and close to him.


	3. Chapter 2

In their first week, they took on ten cases, though none of them paid. It was a lot of work, worsened by their slow computers and frequent phone calls interrupting their workflow. Foggy had been cautious in the cases he accepted, but Matt was more capricious, sharing only a few words with potential clients before deciding whether or not to take them on. He wasn’t nearly as flippant about letting them go, though, and soon they were swamped with bleary eyes, and it didn’t feel too different from their ventures in corporate settings, only they were together.

And they were their own employers, now, and every time they handed over a contract for a pro bono case, Foggy saw it as hours of his time spent being busy and not making a dime.

But Matt seemed so certain and driven, as in everything he did, and Foggy longed for a portion of that, so he followed. And with each day, his sleep deficit grew and his blood grew thin with caffeine. He grew jumpier, but it wasn’t an issue until a phone rang one morning, and Foggy startled, leaving his ceramic mug to shatter on the floor and his coffee to burn his lap.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Matt kept asking as Foggy piled paper towels onto the spill. “We could look into getting an assistant.”

"We can't afford an assistant," Foggy said sternly. He rummaged through his bag and took out a spare pair of pants, wrinkled but clean. "Not without paying one way below their due, anyway." He looked around, and the office was empty, as it usually was, save the pair of them. Sighing to himself, he took his pants off quickly, toeing off his loafers and sitting to pull on the clean pair.

"But you said you had money to start a business," Matt argued, frowning. Unthinkingly, he reached over, feeling the air until his hand found Foggy’s thigh. “Did you get burned? Everything smells like burnt coffee, and I don’t know where the beans end and burning flesh starts.”

Foggy batted his hands away without even laughing. "We blew everything on this place, Matt. Listen. I have to be straight with you."

"Must you?" Matt countered, snide. 

Foggy rolled his eyes and sighed, like he often did around Matt and his incessant wanton disregard for anything grounded. "Yes, I must. We're business partners now, and we have to be business savvy about it. It's all well and noble that we're going to defend the needy, but I have to pay rent and eat sometimes." Foggy reached over to unthread his belt from his ruined pants and he stood up to put it on, and Matt was still worrying at Foggy’s pant legs, trying to smooth out the wrinkles.

The door opened and shut in a second and the men took a moment to assess where they may have gone wrong. At any other time, they would have laughed. Now, they were fighting about money and a prospective client just ran away because of a misunderstanding.

“Fuck,” Foggy cursed. “I’ll go chase him down. Think about money for a few seconds, Matt. We have a fucking business now.” The door shut again to Foggy’s grumbling. The office still smelled of coffee, and they were fighting.

Matt sagged into his seat and rubbed at his eyes. He wondered, as he often did when they fought, whether this would be the last one. It was easy to imagine. The office was under Foggy's name, and one day, when the daily stress of having to deal with Matt inevitably became unbearable, he would be let go. It would happen gracefully. Foggy would help him pack his boxes. They would hug, and then Foggy would transform, in a matter of moments from the man who was his best friend to the man who was once a co-worker.

His hands wandered over to Foggy's desk, piled high with documentation. He read the labels with his fingertips and he ran his hands over the pages and pages of invoices and bank statements, testifying to how broke they were.

He hadn't known the situation, not really. He had just hoped that Foggy would be able to figure it out, as he always figured it out. He had had so much faith in Foggy's money and wits that he had admittedly become complacent. It angered him, how easily he lost his grasp on things that seemed to be easy to others. Communication, kindness, looking over one's accounts on a regular basis. These are things which he once had mastery of but were now entrusted almost entirely to Foggy. His dependence sickened him, and guilt washed over him.

He rationalized that Foggy would be right to let him go. He would want a partner who was attentive, who cared about the details that stressed him out. Foggy deserved that kind of partner. Matt was, at the outset, too selfish and frivolous, to be any good for a business, let alone Foggy’s. It was unfair to burden him. He should have been more aware.

"Hello?" A small voice called, breaking Matt free from his thoughts. Matt turned to the voice and smiled weakly. “Is this Nelson and Murdock? Are you taking clients right now?”

“Of course!” he answered. Welcoming new clients was a very basic skill he had to have as a lawyer, but somehow he felt naked and lost without Foggy around, as if his charm had all seeped out of him with the slam of the door. He felt hot under his collar.

"Perfect! I'm Mary. I want to sue Daredevil."

-

Foggy came back a whole hour later with a stack of papers in his arms.

"I got us a case," Foggy said in a monotone, starting to flit through the pages. They'd need to be digitized so that Matt could read them, Foggy thought morosely. Or else, someone had to read them out to him. He didn't regret that he went into business with a blind attorney, but it certainly was a lot of work if they were to be a two-man operation.

"Oh?"

"Nothing you'd be interested in. A heated divorce between some socialites or other. It'll pay well," he explained. It wasn't in Matt's vision; Foggy was already failing to live up. "My mother preferred us," he added shamefully.

"Foggy-" Matt started. He wanted to explain himself, he wanted to convince his partner that he was willing to do anything to keep their little boat afloat, that Foggy wasn’t alone in manning the ship. He didn’t know if it was enough.

"I know it's a slog, but we should be able to pump this one out in a month or so since custody’s a non-issue," he went on. “Well, not yet, at least. She’s two months pregnant, but as long as we can resolve this before the second trimester, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

"Okay, we can take it on. I don't mind," Matt said, feeling quiet and acquiescent. He smelled the iron tang of blood from somewhere, and he was becoming increasingly aware that it might be emanating from Foggy.

Deflating, Foggy sighed in relief. "Thank Christ. I couldn't do this alone, Matty. I know you have your goals, but we're really new at this, and we have to build ourselves up. And to do that, we have to have the same head about things, alright?"

Matt nodded to avoid his voice cracking.

"We won't sell our souls or anything, but we have to make money, too. I don't have to be rich. Just enough for rent and the occasional vice or two."

"You should stop smoking," Matt frowned. He hated the smell of tar and tobacco and death that followed Foggy like a bad omen. He hated that he had only taken it up to relieve stress some two internships ago and hadn't stopped. He hated that it was a testament to his stress, killing him sooner rather than later.

"I know it's bad for me. Come the new year, I'll quit."

"That's what you said last year," he reminded Foggy. It had been a spectacular failure, ending with Foggy sneaking out of their shared apartment in the middle of the night to partake. He came back to bed smelling like guilt, among other things, and neither of them had slept well. It had been two weeks into January.

"Sorry."

"It's okay," Matt lied.

A sudden silence hit the both of them and they didn't know how to continue. Matt rapped his fingers sharply on the wood of his desk and coughed.

"I have a case, too. She came in while you were out."

"Any details?" Foggy urged lifting forward to watch him carefully. Matt's face shifted into one of discomfort.

"She wants to sue Daredevil. He caused her to fall off a building and she's still in recovery."

"Oh," Foggy said. "I take it you don't like Daredevil much?"

On an intellectual level, Foggy knew not to like the Daredevil. He was morally shoddy, he was violent, he was inconsistent and likely hypocritical at times. As a man of the law, he should hate Daredevil as a concept, let alone as a man. But sometimes he would see the lunatic out on the streets and he would conjure a thought to himself, buried deep where no one would have to know, that it was nice to know someone was taking care of the neighbourhood. He seemed like the sort of man with a purpose. Daredevil was brave and honest in his morals, ramshackled though they may be, and for that, Foggy had no choice but to admire him.

“I don’t mind the guy,” Matt said consideringly. He fussed with a dog-eared corner of some loose leaf paper. “I just think it might be interesting, is all. A lawsuit against an anonymous superhero? It hasn’t really been done before.”

Foggy nodded, then, a second later, realizing Matt can’t see him, said, “I get what you mean. Setting precedents and all. But do you think it’s wise?”

Matt did not think it was wise in the slightest, but there was something about Mary, who had been sweet and fervent. She had wanted justice, though, and surely, who was Matt to begrudge her?

Still, it would be difficult were this to go to court. He simply could not be in two places at once. Guiltily, he knew this meant that Foggy would have to play mediator, doubling his work. He added another note to the itemized list of reasons 'Foggy will leave' he had running in his head.

“We’d have to get in touch with him, first,” Foggy said briskly.

“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Matt assured him.

-

“That’s absurd. People don’t deserve people,” Foggy reiterated, groaning at Matt’s set frown. For someone who had wanted to start his own business, Matt seemed keen on making it difficult for the both of them.

Matt shook his head. “It’s not that,” he tried to explain. “He’s still clearly in love. And she talks a big game, but she’s also reluctant to leave.”

“She’s well within her rights to leave a marriage! Whose side are you on?” Foggy bemoaned.

“What about you? Whose side are  _ you _ on?”

Foggy shook his head again. “You’re too romantic, Matthew. I’m on our side. There’s no case without a divorce, and without  _ this _ particular well-paying case, we can’t afford an assistant.”

“Then we won’t get an assistant! There has to be a way to resolve this without putting our client’s happiness by the wayside.”

Matt swiveled his chair away and crossed his arms stubbornly. Foggy wheeled up to him and turned Matt’s chair to face him, and their knees knocked together. Foggy had his hands on Matt’s armrests, and he trapped him, close and dizzying. The air between them was suddenly dense and suffocating. Foggy stared at him, searching for some answer, though he couldn’t find anything. He searched for some way to make their partnership work.

“I’m trying to make you happy, here, Matty,” he said honestly. “Just tell me how to make you happy.”

Matt, in turn, tried his best to say something, anything, but his mouth was dry. His fingers tapped nervously at his lap, and he wanted urgently to reach out. Foggy’s face was only a foot away, and his tie was loose, a slow swinging pendulum between them. It tickled his hands. He shrunk under the weight of Foggy’s scrutiny, the intensity of his attention. He felt alight with their proximity.

“Am I interrupting something?” Mary asked from the door. She stood with a restless energy, not knowing if she should move forward.

Foggy lifted from the moment easily, turning his attention to her. Matt, on the other hand, was slow to recover.

“No, no. I’m Franklin Nelson, nice to meet you,” he greeted, standing to shake her hand.

“Mary Walker,” she said softly. “I brought over my medical files, since Matt and I did the authorization this morning.” They did an awkward fumble, almost a dance, as Mary unloaded some files into his arms. They chuckled together, and Matt thought miserably that they were so naturally adept at communication. He envied in their direction. He envied in a lot of directions.

“Thank you, Ms. Walker,” Foggy said, gentlemanly and proper, and still somehow immensely charming. “We would have gotten around to it soon, though. I promise you can trust us,” he assured. She nodded, looked at him, and touched his arm. Casually, of course, but it seemed to Matt like a breach of some sort. They had only just met, after all.

“I’m sure.” She smiled at them both, taking a moment to lean her head on the doorframe. Her electric dyed-red hair framed her face with such delicacy that it caused Foggy’s heart to ache for her. She was so young, and she was pursuing a ballsy case. “I trust you. I just wanted to save you some trouble. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you. We’ll be in touch,” Foggy said. He went in to shake her hand again, but the heavy stack of papers got in the way and Mary laughed. Not meanly, of course, and her long hair flew freely behind her.

“Thank you, Mr. Nelson,” she said instead, leaning up to kiss his cheek.

“Call us if you need anything,” Foggy said, emptily repeating words he had just heard. His face turned warmer and he gave a sideways glance at Matt, who had been quietly flipping through some files for their divorce case.

“It was nice seeing you, Matt,” Mary called to him cheerily.

“Likewise,” he smiled back.

And, as if she could just leave without any repercussions to her actions, she bounced out of their office and stepped out into the street. She had been triumphant, of course, and it was made all the worse because she hadn’t even known she was competing.

It was a useless, pathetic thought, and Matt would have to discard it. It was nothing. It was less than nothing. Foggy has been disciplined with women before, and he is capable of being so again.


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> homophobia and ableism ahead

The motel was dirty and smelled of vinegar when Daredevil knocked on its grimy window. “Mr. Jenkins?” The man inside, who had been halfway asleep gasped into alertness.

“What-? Who-?” Mr. Jenkins called out. The shadowy darkness of the night did not lessen his fear. Daredevil fiddled with the lock from the other side, and he raised the windowpane, leaning into the room, but not stepping into the room proper.

“Mr. Jenkins!” Daredevil said again. “It’s Daredevil. I have to have a word with you regarding your wife.”

His heart sped up and for an instant, a wilder fear and shock overtook him. He panicked.

“What’s happened to her? Is she safe?” he demanded, shuffling on some boxers and socks.

“She’s fine,” Daredevil said. His horns were menacing in the backlight, darkness swallowing his features. Despite this, he tried to be a calming presence. “I heard you were getting a divorce?”

He scoffed and rubbed his weathered hand over his face. His wedding ring, still warm on his left hand, caught his wiry hair. “She’s divorcing me.”

“She loves you, still,” Daredevil said bluntly.

“I know that,” Jenkins retorted. “I know. But if this is what she thinks is best, I won’t stop her.”

“Are you going to fight for her?”

Jenkins sighed and wrapped his blanket around himself. “No, I’m not. She can take everything for all I care. I’ve already lost everything if she’s leaving me.”

“Why are you divorcing, then?” Matt asked softly. It was surprising how two people who so clearly loved each other were so incapable of seeing it, of doing what they need to do to communicate.

“Why do you care?” Jenkins spat, turning away from the other man. Jenkins huffed, and the cup noodles he had for dinner hit Matt in the nose.

Daredevil concentrated very hard on the headache that was forming behind his eyes. “I’m a concerned citizen, Herb. You gotta trust that two of Wall Street's finest duking it out over custody when everyone around them swears that they’re nuts about each other seems a little suspect.”

“You don’t understand, Daredevil. She’s pregnant.”

This, Matt had known. “So there’s a child on the way. Isn’t this more reason to try to work things out?”

Jenkins sobbed a little, still facing the other way. There was a stranger in his shabby temporary home, he was in his boxers, and he was wracked with insecurity and shame. He cursed under his breath and said his piece. “I’m infertile,” he admitted shakily. “Sterile. My loads shoot blanks.”

Daredevil sat down on the windowsill, urging him to go on.

“I had an awful bout of cancer before I met her. I thought I was fine, but then we were really trying, and I went to the doctor about it. I was going to tell her, but then, everything happened.

“So,” Jenkins continued despairingly. “Unless I had some miracle a few weeks back, I think it’s pretty clear what happened. If I can’t make her happy, the least I can do is let her try with someone who can.”

Matt had never considered that stubbornness could so easily fit the definition of stupidity as well. “You should be honest with her.”

Jenkins made a disparaging noise and curled ever tighter into his cocoon. Matt almost pitied him, but he was more frustrated. “It’s pretty set in stone. We’re not looking to make up, we just need this thing finalized before I have to start paying alimony. You should have seen her lawyers. They’re a joke.”

Stopping halfway out the window, something lurched inside Matt, and he felt the devil grow stronger. Only incrementally. “What do you mean?”

Then, like a whip crack in the night, Jenkins laughed and Matt tightened his fists. “They’re a couple of fairies, Daredevil. And one of them’s a cripple. I’d hardly trust them to get me out of a parking ticket, so believe me when I say we’re just going through the motions.”

-

In these exact moments, Foggy had been having a very late dinner with Mrs. Jenkins at an upscale restaurant where he was immediately made aware that the colour of his suit had been out of style for the past three years. He felt like he was drowning in the chandelier lights. He tried not to slouch and he tried desperately to remember which utensils were strictly for salads and which were for desserts.

Mrs. Jenkins, on the other hand, did not have any similar qualms. She sat with her elbows on the table, her bun amess, and her smart and modest dress slightly askew. Her eyes were rimmed with red, as if she had been crying, but it felt like a betrayal to mention that he had noticed these things.

“He hasn’t talked to me in a week. That bastard.” she said. The words were angry, but her tone was morose. “No explanation, no calls, nothing. It’s like he hates me.”

“And there’s nothing that happened in the past little while that would have triggered such behaviour?” He took a bite of his pasta with the wrong fork and noticed he waitstaff looking at him quizzically.

She shook her head slowly. “Pregnancy, I suppose.”

“And he had wanted this baby?”

“Of course! At least, I really, really thought he did. And now I’m going to be stuck with it and it’s not going to have a father because he just up and leaves the moment he knows it might actually happen.

“I thought- okay, this is besides the point because he wasn’t supposed to find out, but I guess you folk are sensitive, so I can say.” She took a breath and Foggy leaned in to hear her better.

“I got some help conceiving. I talked to some doctors. There were some embryos from some other experiment, and I just thought they could use a home,” she cried, burying her face in her hands. Her mascara started running, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Everything’s still settling, but it looks like twins. God, Mr. Nelson, I can’t just have two kids now. I need my husband back. He keeps me sane.”

Foggy, like he did often, came to the realization that Matt had been right, though he admitted it to himself begrudgingly. It often alarmed Foggy how well he could read people. It never left Foggy’s mind that his best friend was blind, but the depth of his perceptive skills were unparalleled. With a little regret, he mourned the loss of the commission cheque.

“You should talk to him," Foggy suggested. "I'm sure you can work through it together. And if you can't, I'm sure he'd appreciate the honesty."

-

Jenkins curled up on his bed, and watched as Daredevil’s fist hit its apex.

“Did you hurt him?” demanded the devil, scowling maniacally and pinning him down with a steady hand.

“No!”

Matt raised his fist higher and Jenkins squeaked. His heart raced with fear, and it was shamefully gratifying.

“Really! I may have roughed him up. If he fell, it’s not my fault.”

Just once, because his hand was aching for it, he hit him, and a tooth fell loose.

“Why did you do it?” he asked, disgusted.

Jenkins spit at him, then coughed on his own blood. “What are you doing right now?” he laughed callously. “It’s a fucking power play, isn’t it? I had to show that fucker who’s boss in these parts. Lawyers know the game; it’s intimidation.”

“And last I checked, assault isn’t generally in their toolkit.” Snarling, he brought Jenkins tighter to the wall behind him. Any more, and he’d be out of air.

“Then last I checked, you’re still a criminal.”

Matt lunged, landing a fist on the cheap plaster and thin insulation wall. A painting shook loose and shattered to the ground. Then, as if the spirit left him, he let Jenkins go.

“Sure,” he said cordially, and headed back to the window. “But we’re going to be careful with people from now on, aren’t we? And don’t lay a finger on Nelson, because I  _ will _ know, and I’m going to pull each of your teeth from your skull, and you’re going to thank me for how mercifully I treat you.”

“And what are you?” Jenkins called after him. “Patron Saint of Fags?” He stepped on some glass and cursed.

“If I have to be,” answered the Devil, and he disappeared into the shadows.

-

A week later, near the end of the work day, Nelson and Murdock opened some mail from the Jenkinses. There was a sonogram, a cheque, and a letter. The letter merely thanked them, and Matt was glad that neither of them would have to deal with either of them anymore.

The cheque, which was for a hefty sum of money, was for their valued time working on the case, plus a generous tip for helping the Jenkins sort themselves out.

The sonogram was hardly discernible, though if Foggy squinted, he could almost make out the notable blobs.

“‘ _ It might not look like anything now, but the doctor says they’re healthy _ ’,” Foggy read aloud. “‘ _ Two whole children! These things are going to be walking around and talking one day, Lord willing. Sincerely, The Jenkinses _ .’ And that’s all she wrote,” Foggy noted, neatly, putting everything back into the envelope and into the filing cabinet with the rest of the case. It was unsentimental and rote, and Matt was grateful for it.

“Case closed, then, I suppose,” Matt said, equally unemotional. He leaned back in his chair, resting his hands behind his head.

“I guess you won, then. They ended up together.”

“But do you think they deserved it?”

“Of course. Everyone deserves a shot at happiness, don’t they?”

A month ago, he would have agreed. There were fundamental things people needed as a social species, and some base level of love seemed non-negotiable. Now, though, he wondered if a man who had to be beaten into good behaviour was the sort of man he wanted having a gainful income and a doting wife.

“Do they? I mean, say one of them wasn’t all that savoury. Say he's the violent sort. What about then?”

“Do you think he would hit her?” Foggy asked, as if getting roughed up didn’t matter, as if it was so normal for him that he had excised it from his mind easily. As if bleeding were a categorically similar experience to eating chicken for the third day in a row, or wearing one’s fifth favourite pair of shoes.

“No, but what if he were inclined to hurt others?”

Foggy paused his paperwork and studied Matt for a long moment. “Who told you?” he asked.

“About what?” Matt’s hands grew clammy and he wiped at his pant legs.

“Jenkins hit me. Don’t play dumb. Who told you?”

“Did he?”

“Matt, please. I know you know. Just- I’m sorry, okay?” Foggy said, sighing into his hands.

Dumbstruck, he bolted forth, wheeling his chair to meet its partner, placing his knees between Foggy’s. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“If you heard and got scared for anything. He wouldn’t lay a hand on you, I promise.”

“Why did you take the case?” asked Matt, as gentle as he could, though he knew the answer. He had been reckless again, and Foggy paid for it, again.

Foggy took the cheque and it lay limply in his hand. “We have enough to hire an assistant,” he said plainly.

Matt smiled weakly at him. They were alone in the room together, and the walls enveloped them. It felt intimate, and it felt devastating all at once. Matt never felt more at home, beside Foggy and against the world. Slowly, he went to their fridge and procured a bottle of champagne and reached around the counter for some plastic cups.

“We should celebrate, then.”

Foggy laughed, finally, though it was thin and dry. Matt worried that the life in his laugh was wavering, and he wanted desperately to preserve it. “Take out’s on me tonight,” Foggy offered lightly.

“We share expenses,” Matt pointed out.

And Foggy laughed, fuller this time.

-

“Why do you seem so happy?” Foggy accused, though he hiccupped and giggled at the way Matt’s hands kept finding the squishiest parts of his face. Despite everything, a huge weight had lifted for their firm, and Foggy felt more at ease than he had in a long time. There was something about unwinding with Matt that put him at ease. “Wipe that smirk off your face, you look like an asshole.”

“And if I refuse?” he teased. He brought the pad see ew to his lips and took a hefty bite. 

“I’ll wipe it off for you, you self-righteous bastard,” Foggy warned. He leaned forward, pinching Matt’s cheeks, and stretching his skin to get him to frown. In his drunken state, Matt’s face became putty, and he giggled at how malleable it was.

“Stop!” he cackled, grabbing Foggy by the ear and pulling him downwards. They toppled their chairs and landed in a heap on top of each other. Despite everything, this was a win. Despite everything, they could keep their firm running a while longer. They were two people willing to fight to stay together, and they loved each other, as plain and true as a love could be.

“Can I tell you something?” Foggy asked, breathing warmth to Matt’s cheeks.

“Of course.”

“I took on another case today, just a small one, and we sorted it out in two hours.”

“What was it about?”

Foggy hummed and rolled onto his back, swallowing his spit to regale his story. “Some kid walked in here. He was maybe eight or nine. Deaf as my aunt Linda, and real scruffy looking.

“He wrote me these notes, and turns out he’s from the school a block over. He needed help because his teacher wasn’t really all that accessible. So on top of helping him with his math and history, I walked right on over and I hit her with Section 504 pretty hard.

“Wanna guess how he paid me?

“How did he pay you?” Matt was already grinning dopily, imagining the scene. He loved how great Foggy was with children. He had a theory that children, like small animals, could smell something in the soul, and he felt vindicated every time one of them took a liking to Foggy.

“He paid me with five whole nickels and half of his egg salad sandwich. It felt leagues more fulfilling than this fucking cheque.

“I just wanted to tell you, because I want you to know that I get it, Matty. I really do. If I never make another penny again, I’ll have you to thank, and I want you to know that it’ll be sincere.”

The words split Matt’s mouth straight to his ears and he felt like his face was breaking from the beauty of it. “You’re brilliant,” he said honestly. “Foggy, I could kiss you."

Foggy snorted. “Go ahead. I dare you.”

And Matt laughed a quiet laugh. Something heavy, laced with self consciousness and humour in equal parts. He rolled himself on top of Foggy, and slowly, he took off his glasses.

Matt looked enchanting by the light of the yellow-tinted fluorescent bulbs mingling with the late summer moon outside. Foggy had always thought Matt’s eyes were beautiful, though he didn’t see them enough to really know them. They were a cool sort of blue, and though they were sightless, they held with them a weight, as if in the short time they had been functional, they had seen far too much. They were framed in chemical scars and heavy bags, Foggy noticed for the first time.

Then, suddenly, they were closed and Matt was kissing him slowly and with far too much intent if this were still part of the joke. Foggy found himself reciprocating for a few moments before he sobered, realizing where he was and who he was with. Panicking, he shoved Matt off of him and shot up to a sitting position.

“Sorry!” Matt was saying, hastily shoving his glasses back on and straightening himself up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just- shit. Was that too far?”

“Yeah,” Foggy swallowed, as he tried to breathe through his racing heart. “It just felt kinda real for a second. Let’s just agree not to do that again, alright?”

“Okay,” Matt nodded, feeling empty. "Okay, sorry, yeah. I'll stop."

"Good!" Foggy exclaimed, still processing what had just happened. "It's fine. We know now. We're just not the kind of best friends who kiss on occasion. We’ll just, we can just agree not to do that again, and we can just pretend that never happened. No harm done, right?"

“No, no,” Matt acquiesced. “That’s, okay, yeah, that sounds like a plan.”

They parted ways soon after, exchanging awkward goodbyes as if they were newly acquainted. They shook hands, something they hadn’t even done upon their first meeting.

Foggy left without his usual cheer, his usual assurance that they’d meet again in the morning. He was too shaken to conjure his usual routine; he had missed his usual turn, and in so doing, he encountered a horrific scene in the alleys. There had been a scared woman and some man in a balaclava. There was a discarded, splitting two-by-four, and there was his drunken adrenaline strength breaking it on the stranger's head.

Matt, likewise, took the long way home, walking first past his father’s old gym, then his church, and past the local cemetery before finally making his way into his tiny and lonely apartment. These places had once been a comfort to him. Proof that he had a past, that he did not merely spring forth, fully automated and angry, as it often felt like he had been. He heard a scuffle in the distance, but someone had gotten to the perpetrator first, and he listed to the cracking wood as it rang through the quiet night.

He walked into his empty apartment where his furnishings still half-smelled as they had years ago, when he and Foggy bought them freshmen. He rummaged through the drawer Foggy kept his clothes in for overnight visits and put on one of his too-large sweaters. He fixed himself a beer, and sat down on a couch that Foggy often slept in. He contemplated all the ways he had been selfishly breaking boundaries and he threw his fleece blanket over himself, trying to feel as warm as he did just minutes ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can sort of tell what timeframe this is roughly set in because the ADA hasn't been ratified yet, but section 504 of the rehabilitation act has lol


	5. Chapter 4

The next day was one devoid of sympathy. It started with a crow rapping at Matt's window before he even felt the light of the sun hit his face. The apartment was chilled in a haunted sort of way, and even forcing his sheets off of himself felt like duress.

When he showered, it was in cold water because the hot water would not turn on (There had been a paper sign taped near the elevator that Matt hadn’t known to read), and by the time he stepped out of the tub, his teeth were chattering with such vigor that he feared for his jaw. He got dressed and ate his cereal-and-coffee breakfast before hurrying out the door, shoes only half-tied. He had a headache long before he got to the office, and it did not lessen when he got there.

Foggy walked in with a woman and Matt knew she was pretty. The familiar presence of Foggy came with a certain stiffness and clammy hands. He was already nervous beside her, as he often was around pretty women. And she, too, must have already found Foggy charming sometime in the few minutes or hours she had to have known him because she fidgeted with the buttons of her blouse sleeve and her breath hitched just so whenever she looked to him. Matt was more than bereft or miserable, he was nauseated.

Foggy gave her an assuring thumbs up, and they must have smiled at each other then, because their demeanors changed into something calmer and resolute. She waited politely by the door as Foggy made his way towards Matt.

“Hey,” he greeted.

Foggy's heart flickered as he spoke, also nervous, but in a wholly different way than when it had trilled for the  _ pretty _ woman, and for the millionth time, Matt was met with the intimate knowledge of his inadequacy; his lack of ease and coy ingenuity would draw away any man's interest. Instead, he was impossibly gainly, high maintenance, and peculiar to a fault. Everything he did to beat against the unrelenting winds of sheer  _ feeling  _ had been so small and insignificant, and Matt felt that he would burst if nothing changed. He hated how weak he was. He had been trained to be better, and he was a failure.

And Foggy was talking. Matt only began to understand seconds in; Foggy wanted more than Matt could offer. He wanted a full firm, he wanted to bring in other partners, administrators, perhaps form affiliations with other companies. In short, he wanted more than the two of them together.

Perhaps Foggy had not said the words exactly, but this was what he understood.

Eventually, though, he got Foggy's attention back by grimacing as he tried to stand. “Woah, buddy, you don’t look so hot. Are you ok?” Foggy asked. He reached over, as if to fix Matt's disheveled hair, or his crooked tie, or any myriad of neglected grooming that revealed Matt as he truly was; someone feral and uncaring. Foggy's hand stopped midair, and Matt flinched from the lack of contact.

"Fine," he lied. "I just slept funny."

"Sure," Foggy coughed. The woman by the door gave a fluttery wave and Foggy cleared his throat.

“Anyway,” he said, waving the woman over. “This is Karen. She's our new assistant. I know you haven’t met, but I told her she has a three month probationary period. I’ll send you the terms.”

She smiled at Matt and raised her arm with practiced grace. She only faltered for a second. “Hello,” she greeted. Regrettably, her voice was pleasant and attractive. “Karen Page. I’m holding my hand out to shake, if that’s okay. I take it you’re the Murdock of Nelson and such and such?” Worse, she was charming and friendly, unlike Matt who was only ever dark and awkward.

“The very same,” he said. He tried to smile at her, but it felt pantomime. 

“Looks like we’ll be working together, then, huh?”

“Looks like,” Matt agreed. Some of her astringent perfume rubbed off on his hand and for the rest of the day, he smelled faintly of a more dainty and beautiful creature. It felt like a farce, a brand taunting him.

Was it trivial? Of course it was. And Matt had been ignoring this emotion, the one he refused to name for fear of making it latch onto him and wring him lifeless, for so long. He could continue to do so, and perhaps one day, it would leave him.

-

Daredevil came to him after an attempted mugging. He had just walked Karen to her door, meaning he was out a little later than he had expected, and Hell's Kitchen was always rife with the desperate-turned-violent. He was a rare sight: a suit on the streets. His pockets were empty but they wouldn't know that.

"Give me your wallet," a masked child was saying, pointing a paring knife at Foggy's chest. And he was just a child. Perhaps in his late teens or early twenties at most, with a signature jitter about his person that meant starvation, addiction, perhaps neglect or abuse. His face was covered, but his dark skin, where it was exposed, met the night and disappeared into the dark of the evening. He was a pair of eyes, scared and sick.

"How about I give you a twenty and I can keep my cards?" Foggy tried, reaching into his pocket.

"I…" the mugger hesitated. "I don't know if that's enough. What do you have in cash?"

"I don't know what to tell you, kid. That's really all I have. The clothes on my back are worth less," Foggy said, handing over his crumpled bill. "Sorry."

The kid sighed and deflated against the stone wall. "Fuck," he swore into his hands. Foggy took a seat beside him.

"Are you alright?"

"No," he said, into his hands. He started shaking, and Foggy realized with a start that he was crying.

"Can I ask what's wrong?" he asked cautiously, keeping his hands in his lap. Between them, he was playing with the fold of his wallet and noticed how the fake leather had started to peel.

The mugger looked to him for a second, both in shock and awe. He balked, then finally, he produced the words.

"My dad kicked me out, and my part time isn't enough to pay rent. I haven't been to class in a month and everyone's asking where I am. Just, fuck," he despaired, bringing his knees to his chest.

Of course Foggy felt bad for him. Any human would. Not a second thought later, he pulled out a business card. It was a little worn at the edges, and a red mark on it from God-knows-where, but he handed it to the kid regardless.

"Call this number, sometimes during office hours," he said. "Just say you're a referral, no one has to know about this interaction, alright?"

The mugger froze with the rectangle in his hands, paring knife long forgotten on the pavement. "Lawyers?"

"Yes, lawyers. With connections to social workers, and agents for temporary shelter, and food banks, and rehabilitation, the works," Foggy explained.

"And cops?"

He nodded. "And cops. But lawyers aren't cops."

The kid looked conflicted again, and shook his head. "I've done things, though. Illegal things."

"What have you done?" Foggy asked calmly.

The kid sighed. "I've sold things, man. Things people shouldn't be selling."

"Like drugs?"

The kid nodded, scrunching his face up like he wanted to cry. "And… and sex. It's been a rough month."

"Jesus Christ, how old are you?" Foggy asked, running a hand through his already messy hair.

"I turn seventeen in three weeks," he admitted, as if it were a crime. He turned to Foggy, somber, and his wide brown eyes were afraid. "You can't let me go to jail. My dad went when he was a kid. My uncle, too."

"I promise I will fight tooth and nail to keep you out. Let me walk you home."

The kid bristled. "I can't pay you anything," he said bluntly. "And I don't have much to offer, but if there's anything I can do-"

"Jesus, kid. Pro bono," he said, waving the thought aside. "I'll work for free, and we're both going to pretend you didn't just solicit a lawyer. I just want to make sure no one shanks you on the way home."

The mugger let out a hollow laugh and it turned into a sob. Careful not to touch the guy, he got up to his feet and waited. Then, silently, he followed the kid as he made his way home, his thin legs shaking with the effort.

"Can I tell you something?" the mugger asked when they reached a decrepit apartment complex that smelled faintly of bleach and moss.

"Sure," Foggy shrugged, taking a quick glance at his watch. It was nearly midnight.

"I'm gay," he said slowly, but surely. He ducked his head, avoiding Foggy’s eyes as if to avoid holy judgement. "And my dad didn't like it, and I don't know if you will, but you're not my dad, and I've decided not to care."

Foggy felt something warm in him, the knowledge of something kindred between them. The kid felt familiar, all at once, as if they were a family with the world turned against them. He had never envisioned himself as a mentor or caregiver of any sort but he knew, then, that he would protect him. Solidarity blossomed, a thick thread between them.

"That's okay," he said. "I mean, from a completely legal standpoint, it's perfectly fine, and you deserve rights, like anyone else.” He realized how thick-worded he was being, then. He was talking to a child, whose world did not consist of rights and freedoms, merely food and shelter. “Call the office when you get a chance.”

Weakly, the kid smiled at the pavement and opened the door, but just before he walked in, he met Foggy's eyes. He considered the older man for a guarded second before taking off his mask.

Foggy could see him now, the youth of his features, the openness of his forehead, the fat of his cheeks. It made his heart plummet that someone so young was subject to the scum of the city, as it festered and ate away at those who were merely trying to survive. Foggy waved at him from the sidewalk, and the kid nodded curtly before stepping inside. He watched as the boy walked away, and then when the door closed behind him, Foggy watched the door because there was nothing else to look at.

"Maybe I've been going about this all wrong," a low voice mused from behind him.

Foggy yelped in surprise. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, sighing in relief when he saw the horns. “Yeah, I'm very sure you have. We have laws for a reason.”

“Yeah, and they always work perfectly, don't they?” Daredevil said derisively.

“Still, it doesn't hurt to try things legally.”

"The speed of bureaucracy is a still cube sliding on carpet," Daredevil frowned.

"And you're okay with violence?" he scoffed. "Whatever. Come walk with me."

Obediently, Daredevil followed when Foggy started to walk. It was an unusual route, but Matt knew all the ways to Foggy's house, and he knew immediately that that's where they were headed. 

Wordlessly, they walked, for minutes that felt like eternities, to the small place of Foggy's home.

"Come inside," Foggy said, and it was devoid of any warmth that Matt might have received. It sent a chill down his spine.

Once inside, Foggy immediately retrieved something from his coffee table and pressed it flat to Daredevil's chest.

"What's this?" he asked, not bothering to open the envelope.

"You're being subpoenaed," Foggy explained tiredly, hanging up his coat and setting his bag down. "My client is suing you. I suggest you read over the charges. Find yourself some representation, if possible."

Matt nodded, it hadn't felt real until then, but hearing the words from Foggy's own mouth, that changed. He suddenly felt the stakes of the case. His whole life was on the line, now. If he were unmasked, it would mean a reversal of the last decade of his life, disavowing everything he had worked for. Suddenly his suit felt too restrictive. He tucked the envelope into the waistband of his pants, letting his armoured top wrap around it, close to his chest."I'll represent myself," he said nonchalantly. "How hard can the law even be?" He smirked, drawing Foggy's bemoaned ire.

"Well, ask that to the bar exam, I suppose," he huffed, loosening his tie. "We can avoid court if you're willing to work with us, but negotiations might get a little confusing without counsel present."

"I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Nelson," Matt said, heading towards the window and tracking dirt onto Foggy's floor. He realized that the case was becoming too confusing, and he had to let Mary know where he stood with her. He had to ease negotiations, he had to avoid a trial where his identity would become too obvious. “Anything else you need me for tonight?”

“You’re free to go. I want to see your statement by the end of the week,” Foggy ordered.

Matt sat at the windowsill for a second to breathe in the apartment; it smelled of too many people nowadays, and too much like ink and dust. Then, he jumped. “Take care, Foggy.”

"Wait, how did you know my name?" Foggy called after him. But he swung out of sight and disappeared before the wind caught up to Foggy. It was cold, now that it was the middle of the night. Foggy closed his window and drew his curtains.

-

Typhoid Mary waited on the roof of Nelson and Murdock often. She brought with her some smokes and sometimes, a good book, but mostly she looked at the stars and wondered what they saw when they looked down on all the weak and squabbling people, unable to forgive each other, and unable to fully hate each other as well.

“I’m going to be released tomorrow,” Mary had said to her social worker, when her body was welding itself back to one piece. The worker’s name was Janey, and she was only just older than Mary was. She was pretty and vibrant and educated, and Mary had felt a mean, inexplicable jealousy towards her. “You don’t have to come see me anymore.”

“And what are you going to do now? If you don’t mind my asking,” Janey asked. She posed it openly and she gave Mary the option not to answer, a courtesy Mary had always been thankful for.

“I’m going to sue Daredevil,” she said with fierce determination. She had wanted to do more than that. She wanted inconsiderate men, unthoughtful men to suffer. She wanted to leave Daredevil in a state worse than she had been when she was found. She wanted to scorch and singe the hate into something productive, something destructive.

She could feel Janey watch her, not consciously judgemental, but skeptical nonetheless. Neither of them addressed it.

“Okay. Keep in touch, though,” Janey had said.

And she was given a few pages, advising that she see some therapists, both for her body and mind, but Mary hadn’t looked at those. She was also given a small but precious business card where Janey’s name was Zhanna Boytsova, and Mary wondered how many people had been forced to take on new identities simply because it was more palatable to others. She pitied her, Mary decided. There was nothing so liberating as indignation for the self. She burnt the documents before her other self could read them, using the ashes to write herself a note on the arm. "End Daredevil," she wrote, before falling asleep.

And, so, at last, Daredevil came to her, taking long strides to her. He recognized her. He must have.

She refused to dignify him anything. "You look like you’ve seen better days" She commented coldly, throwing the butt of her cigarette down. She let it burst into flames with her will before it dirtied the roof. It was a courtesy to Nelson, who inexplicably loved the building, and Murdock, whom she had seen less of, but who seemed a decent enough person besides,

“I’m sorry,” he said. Rage flared in her. He was not forgiven.

“And what am I supposed to do with your apology?” she spat, insulted.

“I can’t offer you anything, Mary. I know it’s not enough, but that’s God’s honest truth. I’m not rich and I’m not powerful-”

She cut him off with a kick to the face, and he did not fight back. She set fire to his suit, she clawed, and thrashed, and punched, but he didn’t do anything to retaliate. It made everything worse, that she had spent so long seething at a man so deplorable.

She broke his nose, she let him cry out in agony. It was only when he hiccoughed and let out a shuddering breath that she felt understood the fragility of his life in her hands. And still, she wasn’t satisfied. Taking a moment to trap his face under her heavy-soled boot, she imagined the wet crack of his skull. How it would echo in the quiet night, how the stars might be entertained.

She stepped away, spitting on him instead. It would never be enough.

“If you kill me, don’t tell Foggy this is how I went,” he pleaded.

“Foggy?”

“Nelson. He works here, and he’s- he doesn’t deserve to find out about me like this.”

She bent down to study him, but the pieces didn’t quite add up. “What is he to you?”

“Nothing,” he coughed, too quickly. “He’s nothing, you’re right.” He turned, just to spit out some more blood. “You don’t owe me anything, but if this is how I die, it’s my last request.”

On a capricious whim, perhaps pity, she didn’t kill him. She stomped swiftly on his chest one last time, making sure to crack another rib, and she stepped down from the terrace and making her way down the fire escape.

The stars were incrementally farther away from the ground, and they, the audience of billions, laughed at her as she skulked away, unable to end a dispute that needed ending.


	6. Chapter 5

There was a drizzle by 3am when Foggy woke up to Karen at his door, looking waterlogged and red around the eyes.

“Woah, are you okay?” Foggy asked, letting her inside and taking her soaked-through coat. He turned his attention to the cabinet outside his bathroom.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said absently, trying to wipe the wet of her face with the wet of her hand. “The apartment just seemed so empty, you know? I would have called, but I thought to take a walk instead. And then I sort of ended up here. I’m really sorry, I can go. You were probably sleeping.”

Foggy wrapped a large, fluffy bath towel around her, shaking her hair with it. He kept it there, like a nun’s habit. Tenderly, he took the ends of it and tucked them under her chin, making her huff with fondness.

“How long were you outside?” he asked her seriously.

“What time is it?”

“About three,” he told her, eyeing the red numbers of his alarm clock through his open bedroom door.

“Then two hours,” she said meekly, guiltily. “Look, I’m really sorry. I could go.”

“No, you’ve come all this way. Please. Would you like some tea? Some dry clothes?” he asked, though he was already filling his kettle.

She faltered, drawing the towel tighter around her shivering frame. Slowly, she nodded. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Nelson. That would be great. I really hate to intrude.”

“Well, you’re not going back outside in the middle of the night when someone ordered a hit on you not a week ago.”

Karen frowned at him. “I didn’t even think-”

“It’s okay. Do you prefer black or chamomile?”

“Nothing with caffeine, please.”

“Noted.” He put the box of black back into the cupboard and bustled around her, heading to his bedroom to find some more comfortable clothes. “And you’re taking the bed tonight, Karen. I’m sorry if I’m a slob, but it’s the most comfortable surface I own, and I figure you deserve it, after the night you’ve had.”

Finally, she took her shoes off. She stepped into his living space and her socks left little puddles on his hardwood.

“Thank you,” she kept saying. “I’m embarrassed now. I hate to have made a scene.”

“Karen,” he said sternly, emerging from his bedroom with a neatly folded stack of pyjamas. “You’re free here as long as you want. I’m a boring sort of man, and I have very little social life whatsoever. You’re never a burden.”

She smiled at him, reaching her chilled fingers over to where Foggy’s were holding out fresh clothes for him.

“Now, these are Matt’s, I hope you don’t mind. I think even with an elastic waistband, you’d have a hard time walking with my pants around your ankles.”

“Thank you,” she said again. She couldn’t stop. There were none so many events that could make one experience the world anew than nearly dying at the hands of a stranger. There were none so many experiences so disorienting as receiving undue kindness at the end of it.

He tucked her into his bed, as he had the first night they met. She felt the comfort of Nelson’s home, not yet familiar, but safe.

“You could stay,” she said as he turned towards the door.

He hesitated, studying her face. “Would it make you feel safer?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then I’ll stay,” he said finally, fitting himself under the sheets and settling on the far edge of the bed. A more than respectable distance away. He was a gentleman after all, though Karen found herself hoping he would be so a little less. She hated herself for thinking this way, but she had been so keyed up lately, and everything would be so easy if she had something to distract herself with. And Foggy was so trusting, so honest and accommodating that she figured she would have an easy time with it.

In her next thought, she berated herself, because it was shameful to take advantage of a kind man like that. She wouldn’t want to present the wrong kind of image. She should be kinder. She should consider what he would want. She should want for his safety.

She thanked him again, both tense and comforted by his presence.

-

“Fisk,” she whispered into the air after a long while.

“Hmm?” Foggy moaned, more than half asleep.

“That’s who ordered the hit. I was following a rabbit hole, and I realized he owned everything here. Surveillance and all that. He has eyes everywhere."

Foggy, sounding more tired than any person ever ought to, sat up and watched her through the darkness. “This isn’t about all that soviet business, is it?”

“No, I don’t think so. I just made someone mad. Someone I shouldn’t have." She yawned, though she was far from sleep.

“Hey,” he said, reaching over to the space between them and finally touching her. A thick palm held her still-cold hand where it rested over her chest, her beating heart. She melted into it, feeling the warmth of him seep into her. “We’ll sort it all out, okay? I’ll protect you. Nelson and Murdock both. We’ll keep you safe.”

She fell asleep for the first time in a week next to him. A deep, dreamless slumber took her, and for some glorious hours she was not thinking.

-

By the next morning, a heavy downpour had taken the skies as the clouds wept preemptively. Whether in baptism or grief, Foggy had not yet known when he awoke at 6:45. Often, he felt cursed. People around him were prone to danger. Perhaps there was sampling bias. He was a lawyer, after all; as a rule, lawyers kept company with the ill-fortuned.

His phone rang where it lay beside his bed, on the floor under his mounds of paper. Its wire hung taught from the living room, and the bright green plastic was worn from its overuse. The numbered buttons were also rubbing off. It was a lifeline, a necessity in his life. He felt it most ardently when Matt called.

“Foggy,” rasped Matt’s voice from the other end.

“Matt? What’s happened?” 

Karen stirred from beside him, groaning loudly at the earliness of the hour. “Who’s that?” she asked blearily. He shushed her gently.

“It’s Matt,” Foggy answered gently, scooping the machine into his arms and stepping out of the bed. “Go back to sleep. You have nearly an hour until you have to wake up,” he told her. She moaned some more and flopped onto her side. She shuffled for a moment before her soft snoring started up again.

“Was that Karen?” Matt asked in a tone that Foggy knew meant he was trying to hide his hurt.

“Yeah. She stayed over last night,” Foggy admitted, easily, too tired to fabricate a story in which he was an honest man but Karen was not a damsel.

“Oh, that’s great,” Matt said unconvincingly. “Anyway, I was just calling to let you know I’m probably not going to make it into the office today.”

“Did something happen?” He sobered in a blink and worried at the state of Matt’s health.

He felt Matt hesitate over the line. Then, a defeated sigh landed in Foggy’s ear, muffled and tinny, too far away.

“I’m hurt. It’s not a huge deal, but I’m just going to need some time to recuperate, is all.”

It took a lot for Matt to admit he was in any trouble; Foggy could roughly gauge how dire a situation was by how much he revealed; when Matt was bedridden with a cold, he was “fine,” when he had broken a leg falling down the stairs during a panic attack, he had been “mostly okay, just let me catch my breath for a second,” and when it had been extremely dire, the one time Foggy was held down by two guys, helpless to watch as three more beat Matt down fist by ruthless fist, when his face had been broken and he fell unconscious to the attackers, he was “good to go, really, you don’t have to worry about me,” as soon as he woke up.

Foggy had never heard him admit to an injury, and he had never asked for time off in all the years they had known each other. He had no choice but to infer the worst.

Grumbling, he took his first aid kit from under the kitchen sink, neglecting personal hygiene to collect Matt.

-

“You smell like her,” Matt said nonsensically from his couch. Foggy’s heart plummeted at the sight of him, all burnt and shred-up skin. He was naked under a blanket that was soaked through in his injury.

“Jesus Christ, Matt. What happened to you?”

“There was a fire involved, and a woman who didn’t like me very much,” he slurred and giggled. Then he hissed and clutched at his chest. “I can’t really describe it.”

“Have you been to a hospital?” Foggy asked, approaching Matt slowly and trying not to cry.

“No. I took some painkillers, though, so I’m okay.”

Foggy collapsed at his side, reaching out for a battered, purple hand. He shook his head and felt his face grow wet. “No, Matt. In no way is any of this okay.” He brought Matt’s hand to his forehead, trying to remember if prayer ever worked, but hoping it would. He smelled alcohol, and it occurred to him that it wasn’t the medicinal kind.

Matt nodded loopily, eyes closed, but a small smile playing at the corners of his lips.

“Helps with the pain. And then I can sleep, and then I’ll be okay by tomorrow.”

“No, you won’t. Jesus, you need a hospital. A whole team of doctors,” Foggy said, panicking and wiping at his eyes.

Often, when Matt was hurt, Foggy wondered what went through that enigmatic mind of his. Perhaps, Foggy thought, since he couldn’t see how mangled his body was, the reality of his injuries never truly did hit. Perhaps his father, a boxer, had taught him dangerous things about getting hurt and getting back up. Perhaps his inner-city upbringing had been rougher than imagined.

He wondered how many people had gotten their hands on Matt before he learned to reflexively ignore the pain. Sometimes, in his worst moments, Foggy wondered if it was a blind thing, whether he had developed this sort of response as a way to avoid being pitied or feeling helpless. 

“No hospitals,” Matt pouted. “Please?”

“Why not?” Foggy demanded frantically. He set down his useless first aid kit and ran to Matt’s telephone to call 911.

“It smells like dying people,” he said simply.

“Well, I won’t be able to deal with all of this myself," he snapped, then softened at Matt's recoil. "I’ll stay with you, I promise."

The line connected and a crisp voice on the other end asked, cheerily, “911, what’s your emergency?” and Foggy nearly broke down from having to verbalize it. He feared that his best friend was going to die, and worse, he feared that his best friend wouldn’t mind.

“I think my friend is dying,” Foggy explained deficiently.

“Could you tell us what happened?”

“I don’t know. There’s a lot of blood, and there’s burnt skin, and he’s drunk, oh my god, he just needs _help_ ,” he cried, clutching the phone and twisting the cord between his fingers.

“Sir, it’ll be okay. Could you please just tell us where you are? We’ll send someone as soon as we can,” the voice assured, still energetic and bright. It was an insult to his tragedy.

It took five minutes and forty-six seconds for the ambulance to arrive, and Foggy felt every one of those seconds, slow and painful. Each moment was a year of his life, a yard of his veins, a pound of his flesh, laid out for the vultures to pick at. He called to a God he did not love and laid them out as a bargain for Matt’s life.

-

Things registered slowly when Matt came to. A dripping IV. Footsteps. The reek of death. Two familiar voices talking in hushed whispers beside him. Two familiar bodies holding each other for comfort. Foggy and Karen, leaning on each other while Matt lay immobile, somewhere beyond them.

“Hello?” he called out helplessly. He was fuzzy at the edges.

“Matt? It’s Foggy. How are you feeling, buddy?” Foggy took his hand and Matt squeezed it tightly to ground himself.

They stayed like that, silent and tender and furious at each other for long moments. Matt, because Foggy had seen him at his worst and it was knowledge that Matt would never be able to take back from Foggy's mind. Foggy, because Matt had allowed harm to come to himself.

Karen, who had only known them for a week, stood to the side, fixing the sleeve hem of a shirt that belonged to Foggy and feeling odd in her pants that had been hastily dried of rainwater just minutes before. The pair, the partners, felt intimate in a way inaccessible to her, and as much as she was deeply saddened to know Mr. Murdock had been injured, she was also deeply envious of him.

“Never been better,” said Matt finally, voice rough with impatience and disuse. “When can I get out of here?”

Foggy hung his head, feeling foolish for having expected any other answer. “I can’t believe you, you absolute bastard! You're staying here until you're better.” He started to let go of Matt’s hand, only to find Matt’s iron grip on him ceaseless.

Matt scoffed sharply. The steady drip of the IV burrowed its way into his brain. “I’m fine. No casts on my legs, right? I can walk.”

Foggy grew frustrated, too. “Just rest up some more, will you? There’s nothing wrong with admitting you need some time for yourself!” Foggy nearly yelled. His face reddened with indignation, and he turned to Karen. “I’m real sorry, Karen, but would you let us talk for a second?”

“No worries,” she chirped nervously. “Should I get you anything while I’m out?”

“Just a coffee, if you don’t mind. And something liquefied for Matt to eat. Thank you,” he dismissed, softening for her. The IV continued to drip and Matt felt the white hot desire overtake him. The desire to leave.

Briskly, she stood up and made her exit. Matt counted the strides until she was in the elevator.

“So, you’re sleeping with the secretary,” he observed coldly.

“That’s not what we’re talking about, is it?” Foggy frowned. He took his time looking Matt over, but he couldn’t find an unmarred inch of flesh anywhere.

“Why not?” Matt asked, a little petulant and childlike surrounded by the clinical white and blue machinery. He looked more innocent than he should have, bare, unseeing eyes wide and glazed with medication. He was a medley of colours against the sterile environment. He was blues and purples and yellows. He was reds. His bright ginger hair was messy over his bandaged and bruised face, and Foggy was saddened that this was not the first time he had seen Matt this way.

Foggy picked up the clipboard by Matt’s bedside and cleared his throat. “Broken ribs,” he read out pointedly. “Bruised lungs, fractured collarbones, mild to severe third degree burns, abrasions, blood loss, broken nose, need I go on?”

Matt scowled and kept his face straight ahead, upset that he would not be given the answers he wanted. "No, I get the picture," he ceded, nonetheless.

"Do you?” Foggy cried, harsh where he tried to be gentle. “How many times has something like this happened? How many times have you neglected to tell me you got hit?"

"Foggy," Matt interjected, hoping beyond hope to escape Foggy’s pity above all else.

"I see the cuts and bruises," Foggy said, voice low and somber. "It's not something you have to hide from me. You don’t ever have to hide anything from me, okay?"

In the sensible corners of Matt’s mind, he tried to believe this. He tried to be as open with his friend as he could. But he omitted parts of himself for Foggy’s sake, to keep him safe, to keep him near. Daredevil was such a secret. Daredevil was a non-entity. He was a shadow, a ghost, a half-person who lurked in the darkness because he wasn't ever meant to be seen or scrutinized by the candid daylight. He was not a part of Matt’s life, and he tried his best to keep it that way.

Suddenly, the bareness of his face bothered him. It was spackled with scar tissue, it was hot to the touch with bruising, it was broken. It must be so ugly, he thought. It must be unbearable to witness, and yet Foggy stayed, shedding tears for his countenance, for the person it was attached to. He felt more whole when Foggy looked at him, as if he were more than the broken and hateful man that he knew himself to be. He wanted to be the man Foggy saw and loved. He wanted to stay in his sights. If he could not be the person Foggy deserved to know, he would lie and hide to maintain the image that he was.

"What good is it to know about all that?" Matt asked instead, pleading to revert Foggy’s perception of him to what it was before, when Matthew Murdock was nothing but intelligent and sharp and upright. "What will you do? Chase down my attackers? Brilliant idea, Foggy. Ask me if I got a good look at them, or if saw the vehicle they drove away in,” he argued.

Foggy was still for a moment, watching as bitterness took Matt's features. He wanted for a gentler world, where more people could live long lives without ever knowing the insult of a boot to the face. 

"I'll take care of you, Matt," he answered fervently. "No matter the time of day, or the place. If you're able, just call me and I'll take care of you."

Matt shuddered, defeated. "You sap," he choked, welling with emotion and feeling embarrassed by it.

The tension in the air loosened between them and they shifted with relief. Matt settled further into the bed, and Foggy sat down on the chair beside it. They held hands, though neither could recall who reached out first.

"I brought coffee!" Karen announced, trailing the smells of food and drink in disparate temperatures. There was the crinkle of take out bags, not a hospital tray, and Matt rejoiced a little. "And snacks! I found the softest things I could. I hope you don't mind the variety, Mr. Murdock."

"Not at all, thank you, Ms. Page," he found himself saying, and found that he did truly feel it towards her.

But Foggy leapt to her side to relieve her from her burden, and Matt found himself missing the warmth of the hand on his. Casually, she kissed Foggy’s cheek, and it dampened Matt’s affection towards her. Not completely, but it dampened nonetheless.

"What is all this?" Foggy asked, rifling through the bags.

"Well, there's soup, some oatmeal, fruit juice, and some puddings. I didn't know what he liked best, so I got options for everything."

"Did you at least keep the receipts? We'll reimburse you," Foggy tried.

"No, no, it's my pleasure. Besides, it’s not every day something like this happens," he assured. Matt wanted to scoff at the sentiment because he knew better. Perhaps it wasn’t always him, but it was always somebody, and it was far more frequent than every day. She coughed uncomfortably, unloading the items onto the small table beside Matt. "And, well, it's nice knowing I get a day off from real responsibilities," she said, voice tight though she meant to banter. Matt decided he could probably like her. He decided that he would try, especially if it made Foggy happy to do so.

"Alright, but don't go ordering hits on me just because you've figured it out," he warned, receiving some mushroom soup from Foggy. Rather, Foggy lifted a spoon to Matt’s lips and he hummed his approval when Matt opened up for him.

Karen watched the pair of them, longing for the familiarity they shared.

"I should let you know," she piped up, gathering the confidence to break their bubble. "Mary called while I was out. She went to the office, but it was closed. She left a voicemail."

"Oh?" Foggy said.


	7. Chapter 6

Mary woke up in the morning as she did every other morning she was herself: feeling ill-rested and grimy. She didn’t know what her body got up to the time that she wasn’t there, but she had the distinct notion that it was something uncouth at the very least, and unforgivable at the very worst. She was dressed as her Typhoid self, and had the distinct smell of sulphur and ash seared into her nose.

She had been losing more and more time recently and it scared her. She could hardly remember the last time she had been conscious. Vaguely, she remembered an office and its sour smell of cleaning product turned bad. She remembered a friendly face, a refined coif of red hair, some dark glasses. She remembered the smile of a man who seemed both nervous and earnest.

“We’d be glad to take on your case,” he had said, and Typhoid fought to take her body.

There had been a business card. She put it somewhere for safekeeping. Hopefully, it was still there.

And she had put it in her pocket. A jacket pocket, not a purse. She had been wearing… she had been wearing…

A blazer, perhaps?

-

She called the number on the card as much as she felt was appropriate, though no one ever seemed to pick up. When her pursuits were unfruitful to the point of worrying, she stopped by the address three days in a row but the office, too, had been empty every time. Mary had just started to wonder whether Nelson and Murdock had been fabricated when a frazzled-looking woman entered her sightline.

“Oh! Hello!” she greeted, fishing for the office key in her bag. “Are you looking for representation?” The woman was blonde and tall, and she seemed the responsible type in a pencil skirt and billowy blouse.

Mary hesitated. Should she know this woman? “Well, yes, but I may have already agreed to something,” she explained. She felt hot and clammy, intensely aware that she was coming off as crazy or incompetent. “I’m Mary. Mary Walker.”

These seemed to be the magic words, because the woman lit up and grinned at her. “Funny coincidence, I’m just here to pick up your dossier.” Mary watched as she wrestled the door open and let Mary walk through.

The space felt both familiar and unreal. Half-real perhaps. It smelled familiarly sour. Its appliances mismatched. The desks were of the fold-out plastic variety that she recognized as the cheapest option. She had memories of her stay in the mental ward, where those would be brought out whenever the staff could be bothered to hold events.

There were no other people, though, and there was a noticeable build up of dust on the stacks of paper. "Should I ask where Nelson and Murdock are?"

The woman, a secretary, Mary filled in, hummed, placing her bag haphazardly on a plastic chair and opening up a metal drawer from a large black filing cabinet.

"They're in the hospital," she explained gently. "Mr. Murdock's had an accident, so they've set up shop by his bedside."

Mary made her mouth move, feeling guilty at the prospect that she was wasting the time of such busy people. "That's horrible."

"It is, but they do what they gotta," the woman shrugged. "Honestly, I think it's mostly Mr. Nelson taking on the work, but I get the feeling that Murdock hates to be left out." She was holding Mary's case in her hands now, in delicate but unmanicured fingers. It spanned three thick folders, and Mary buzzed with a juvenile curiosity. She wanted to know what was recorded of her, and whether it was all bad.

"So, suing Daredevil, huh?" the woman continued softly. "It's really ballsy to sue an anonymous person, I think. Kudos."

“How ballsy could it be? He’s just one person at the end of the say,” Mary said, going for nonchalant, but she wasn’t exactly sure. She was beginning to feel like her pursuits were doomed to be unfruitful. She feared that she was already being too burdensome.

“Perhaps, but it’s not like he has a number on the Yellow Pages, is it?” the woman mused.

Mary was already feeling guilty. She had half a mind to withdraw, to just admit that it was a capricious and inane impulse. It wasn't like she knew what the other half of her mind was up to.

But then the bones of her legs buckled where they were still healing, the sharp crack reverberating through her marrow, and she decided that of all things, _suing_ Daredevil was not the craziest thing Typhoid could have done. She could have done so many other things, things involving claws and teeth and fire.

At the end of the day, she needed medication for her pain, for her illness. At the end of the day, she needed someone, _anyone_ to know that she was suffering. It was nice to know that someone was reading on her case, and that they were horrified on her behalf. It was a morsel of validation.

She tried not to think like this often. This petty vindication could so easily become something meaner, something selfish. It was self-indulgence, and self indulgence was something that defined Typhoid; she was desperately clinging on to the notion that Typhoid was someone else entirely, divorced from her own desires and urges. Mary Walker was subdued. Mary Walker was kind.

 _Mary Walker was a doormat_ , she thought meanly. She chased the thought away, because it did not come from her. It couldn’t have.

“Well?” the woman was asking.

“Yes, sure. Of course,” she found herself saying, though she had no idea what she was agreeing to.

“Great! I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to see you.”

-

When they got to the room, it became immediately apparent who Nelson and Murdock were. They were the ones making a raucous in the corner stall, to the visible chagrin of their wardmates. One of them was laid out on the bed, in a dressing gown, looking off somewhere towards his knees while feeling some paper with his fingertips. With a shock, she realized that he was blind. The other was beside him, holding up a two-pound phone to his ear and speaking animatedly to whoever was on the other end. Neither of them seemed particularly happy.

“No!” the one at the bedside exclaimed. His thick palm danced in the air he if he were trying to figure out a point he was making. “We have the Court Order, but it’s not like the insurance company’s going to do anything until we can produce evidence that there will be lasting repercussions.”

The secretary waited patiently at the other side of the bed, tapping her fingers a little on the thick folders.

Finally, Mary’s eyes met the lawyer’s. His eyes were a kind and weathered blue. His uncombed brown hair fell on his forehead in a helter skelter sort of way. He had stubble lining his plump face, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in a while. Still, he smiled at her warmly as he pointed out some chairs to the side for the women to take.

“No, no, that sounds perfect. Thank you, Becky,” he said to the phone, his conversation never losing rhythm. He nodded into the phone as Becky continued to talk, as if she would be able to see him. Then, he said, “Alright, you can bring it into the next meeting. Thanks. I have to go. See you soon,” and hung up with a click, setting his mobile phone on the small table beside him. He patted the other lawyer on the knee, causing him to start a little.

The other lawyer had to be Murdock. He had to have been the one in the accident. He was black and blue on every inch of exposed skin, and the rest was hiding under bandages. He had a split lip, and his eyes were nearly swollen shut. Underneath the mottled skin was a handsome face, as far as Mary could tell. High cheekbones, a wide forehead, square jaw. His hair was longish and flaming red, and it was lit up a sickly colour in the bright green-tinted hospital light. It was a shame to see him so hurt. It pulled at the heartstrings in the same inescapable way a hurt child or small animal pulled at the heartstrings. 

“We have guests, Matty,” the first lawyer, who must have been Nelson, said. “Karen’s brought Ms. Walker with her.” From across the bed, he relieved Karen, the secretary, of her load. He opened up the first folder and started skimming the first few pages.

“Hello,” Mr. Murdock said to their general direction. Head on, the skin looked worse, and Mary was almost sick from how painful those injuries must be. She was sickened at how painful they must have been when the accident was even fresher. He certainly looked pained, and though he was trying to smile at the other two, it hardly reached the ends of his mouth, much less the rest of his face. “Is there anything you wanted to discuss in particular?”

“No,” she answered after a while. She had been looking at him. She had been wondering how covered he was in injury, and she was ashamed that he was focussing on work when he should have been healing. Most of all, she was sorry that one of the cases was hers, and that she was absolutely useless to them with all the time loss she now knew as her functional state of working memory. “I just wanted to make sure you were ok.”

“Well, as you can see, Ms. Walker, I am in peak working condition,” he joked. Mary wasn’t sure whether to laugh.

To save her from her decision, the phone rang, and a belligerent old man said, in a gummy and hollow voice, “For the love of God!” and groaned.

“Sorry!” Nelson called out. It rang a second time. “Matt, can you take this meeting? I’ll take this in the hall.” With that, he left, and Murdock visibly tensed at his absence. Mary, likewise, felt uneasy and unprepared for what was about to happen.

“Karen,” he said finally. “This is a matter of attorney-client privilege. Do you mind?”

There were already a lot of people in the room. Three other patients, and a nurse attending to one of them. Still, having less people involved placated her.

“Oh, of course. I’ll go see if Foggy needs anything,” Karen said, scurrying away.

Between them were the hazy hospital smells and the specks of dust that danced in the daylight streaming in from the window at Murdock’s side. The window was open, and the breeze gentled the specks into regular motions, twisting around them, making the room claustrophobic and judgemental.

“So, Mary,” he said, the consonants puffy from his mouth. Between his swollen lips, he slobbered and bled a little, but he took a kerchief from his bedside and wiped it away. “Would you like to go over your case?”

She let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“If I’m being completely honest, Mr. Murdock, I’m not sure I remember all the details. What do the documents say?”

He smiled thinly. “No idea, unfortunately. None of it’s been transcribed for me, and I haven’t been able to get anyone to dictate it for me. We’re a relatively new firm, and we’ve been busy. I hope you understand.”

“Of course.”

“Why don’t we go over it together?” he offered.

She eyed the tall pile of paper. She had been bursting with interest since she found out about its existence, and her fingers twitched forward.

-

Mary Walker read through the pages, and her heart hammered the entire time. It was as if everything was a surprise to her.

Matt was glad that she wasn’t actively trying to kill him. He was concerned for what it meant for the case and her credibility.

Selfishly, he calculated the odds, and it appeared that Daredevil might have a solid case for himself.

-

Outside in the hall, seated on a ratty looking plush chair, was Foggy with his face in his hands and his phone on his lap. His briefcase was open beside him, and there were discarded papers at his feet.

“What happened?” Karen asked, making her way over to him. He looked up with his wide, unrested eyes, and his face seemed haunted.

He shook his head, defeated, and she crouched down in front of him, wrapping him up in a hug as he had done for her countless times.

Slowly, his breathing calmed down as she rubbed circled into his back.

“There was a kid,” he said finally. “He found himself in a rough situation, and I was helping him through it. He was supposed to call this week.

“He was out, though. Seventeenth birthday. He got busted for alcohol consumption, and they detained him.”

“For underage drinking?” she asked, shocked. Karen had had her first drink at fourteen, and she had never gotten more than a stern word and a knowing wink from anyone. She pulled back from the embrace to watch him. Foggy looked at his hands.

“They put him in a cell with an older guy who didn’t like black folk much.”

“No,” she whispered, not liking where this was going.

“He was already gone by the time they dispatched the paramedics, Karen. He was seventeen, and he was so scrawny.”

“Dear God, these people are ruthless,” she said, falling into the floor proper, gathering her legs under herself. She rubbed at her forehead, trying to wrap her mind around it.

“It’s not just guys like that. It was the cops. There wasn’t any reason to detain him. It’s people that see a drunk black kid and see him as a threat more than child.”

Karen watched him some more as he paled and shook in waves. She reached for his hand where it rested in his lap, but even still he did not turn to her.

“I promised he wouldn’t get put in jail. I promised it’d get better.”

“You couldn’t have known, Foggy,” she told him. The clock kept ticking, slow and sticky, as if the seconds were reluctant to move.

“I have to go tell his family.”

“I’m sure the police have gotten in touch,” she said, overwhelmingly concerned for Foggy in this state. He shook his head and looked at her. She could not read his face.

“I’m going to see his family,” said Foggy definitively. She watched, still on the floor, as he waved over a nurse to let Matt know that he’d be gone. She watched him stuff his papers into his briefcase, wrinkling the pages with bereft abandon. She watched him get up and head to the door without even grabbing his coat. He was halfway to the door when she found her footing and followed him.

-

Byron James was a day shy of seventeen when he was murdered in custody, where he never should have been placed. He was a decent student, and a football player in high school. He was aware of the presence of marijuana, but he only partook when it was asked of him. He had had a boyfriend who could not grieve him openly in the assembly that was held for him at the high school.

His father was drunk. Whether it started before or after he found out about his son, Foggy did not know, but Mr. James had been a lawyer before he was bereaved. Now, in front of Foggy and Karen, he was a mess.

"I suppose you've heard the news," Foggy said at the stop to his house. It was in a decent (read white) neighbourhood. Mr. James was unshaven, and his eyes were red. His breath stank of whiskey and there was a freshly rolled joint tucked behind his ear.

"Yes, I heard the news," he spat. "The fuck are you supposed to be?"

"Franklin Nelson," Foggy answered, handing him a business card. "This is my associate, Karen Page. We were representing your son."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know what happened when you kicked him out?"

"I don't know, the kid was resourceful. Stayed at a friend's or something?" The man looked tired, and he rubbed at his eyes.

"He was squatting. Some apartment in Hell's Kitchen that had no heat or potable water."

Mr. James eyed the pair of them, distrusting. "Fuck."

"We were in the process of finding him more secure housing and getting him back into education."

"Thanks, I guess. Fuck, I don't know how to feel." James rubbed at his face some more, though he didn't visibly sober. "Come in, I guess." He opened the door wider and they all stepped inside. The inside of the apartment was distinguished. The decor was modern, and everything was cut in clean lines. The colours were vibrant and cheery, which contrasted deeply with the way James slumped miserably against everything.

Foggy sat on the couch and watched him, tapping a finger on his knee. Karen sat beside him, tight-lipped and tense.

"He was my only kid," James said finally. "I don't know why the fuck I'm telling you, but I am. My wife died a little after labour with him because she was so young. We both were, you know. I was nineteen and I didn't know a damn thing, but we got married anyway. We were supposed to do it right, you know? White picket and the Sunday school and everything. And then she died and I went to law school while my sister raised my baby. Maybe it came off neglectful, or-or selfish."

The pair let him talk. They watched as his mouth as it tremoured. His lips were surrounded by his unkempt and grey-spackled beard.

"But I thought I knew him for sixteen damn years and he springs it on me he's a homo. What am I supposed to think other than that I done him wrong somehow, you know?

"It's just, I thought maybe he wanted attention, or he was wrong about himself or something. So I told him he wasn't, that we could pray about it.

"Am I a bad father?" he asked suddenly, addressing Foggy and Karen directly.

Neither of them answered. They just stared at their own fingers while James played with a lighter in his hands.

"Do you regret it? Letting him live by himself?" Foggy spoke up.

"'Course I do," James said. "But he'd have flown the nest sooner or later anyhow. I'm sad I thought we should cure him, I guess. Maybe he woulda stayed." James rubbed the back of his head, and he looked at Foggy with young eyes, looking lost and scared, just as his son had, and it occurred to Foggy that this man wasn't that much older than him, and that he had seen so much tragedy.

"It's just, it ain't easy being coloured, and I didn't want him to add anything more to it."

"It's not a choice," Foggy said definitively. "I mean, maybe it's a choice to figure it out and think about it a little, but he would have been miserable if he denied that about himself indefinitely."

James started at his tone. Foggy opened his briefcase and held out a folder between them.

"This is your son's case. There are his words. I thought you should get a chance to see it, one lawyer to another."

Finally, James wept. He didn't reach for the folder, he merely cried, and it was overwhelming in its weight. His broad shoulders shook, and the yellow living room light bounced off his skin. His face crumpled, and he hid it behind one hand. He had already looked like a man who had lost so much in his life, but now he looked like he had lost so much recently.

Carefully, Foggy walked towards him, and set the folder down on the floor beside James. On his knees, he tried to peer at the other man's face to no avail.

Then, James was reaching out and bringing Foggy in for a long hug. James cried into his shoulder for whole minutes before he let up.

"Thank you," he said finally, letting Foggy go with a clap to his shoulder. James didn't look any more comforted. "I gotta go make some calls. Help yourself to anything in the fridge."

"With all due respect, sir, I have a friend in the hospital and we should get back to him," Foggy said, getting up and brushing himself off.

Karen, who had been watching the exchange intently, sprang to her feet.

"Of course, of course," James said absently, letting them leave. Karen handed him a napkin from her bag and he wiped his eyes. "Thank you. Fuck. I'll let you go, now." He walked them to the door and shut it shakily behind them.

When Karen glanced over at Foggy, he was letting out his own shaky, relieved breath and bringing a cigarette to his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: there was a scene i had been debating putting here or the next, but i added it here lmao oops


	8. Chapter 7

Mary had left the hospital in a daze, having learned so much from her files. She trusted herself less, but she found herself admiring Typhoid in a strange way.

Typhoid was fearless, truly, and Mary began to think that maybe she did deserve something. She had almost died, after all, and wasn't it customary to sue for damages? She and Typhoid did not share much, but they had the same body, and they shared in the aches from still-healing bones and still-swollen bruising.

It had taken sheer force of will to bring her bones back together from the shattered mess they had been when she had fallen. Mary had seen the x-rays. There was no human explanation as to how they had maintained their shape.

Mary knew, now. She didn't trust Typhoid, but she was convinced that they shared in this, their protectiveness over their body. Mary would sue Daredevil, and this man, Matthew Murdock would help her.

-

When Foggy and Karen came back, Matt had his eyes closed and his papers in a neat stack beside him. His hands rested neatly over the thin hospital blanket, over his stomach.

"You're back," he said, startling the pair, who had thought he was asleep.

"That'll never stop being creepy," Foggy sighed, approaching Matt at his bedside. He reached for Matt's hand and gave it a squeeze, shuffling it upwards to ruffle his hair.

Matt's lips crept upwards in a bright smile. Foggy smelled like smoke and tears and Karen, but Foggy was looking at him despite it all. It had been a long day but Foggy was there at the end of it.

"They gave me the okay to leave the hospital tomorrow," Matt informed him. "I can finally sleep on my own goddamn bed."

"On your silky sheets, more like," teased Foggy. He turned from Matt, collecting the stacks of paper and letting Karen take some of it.

"Yeah, yeah."

"How did your meeting with Mary go?"

Matt froze and pondered it, frowning. "I'll tell you later. I'm really tired right now."

Foggy nodded, understanding as always. He was so patient with Matt, and Matt knew he didn't deserve it.

"That's okay," said Foggy. "We'll discuss it later. It's nearly six, so I'm going to walk Karen home, if that's okay. I can bring by dinner later, if you don't want to be stuck with hospital food again."

Matt shook his head, trying to be selfless for once. "No, that's okay. Enjoy your evening with Karen," he said, though he wanted to keep Foggy close. If he had the choice, he would never let him leave his side.

Something fizzled in the energy between them and deflated. Foggy's heart tripped for a beat before settling down.

"Okay, Matty. Will do."

And so, Foggy left.

And Foggy stayed with Karen that night because Matt had told him to.

-

A few days later brought the weekend. It was deep into the night when Foggy let himself out onto his balcony through the window. There had been a lot of cases to sift through, and while he was mostly finished writing up for the cases that were immediately pressing, he still had a backlog that he had to contact other people in order to progress. He had eaten nothing but frozen foods, and he was feeling heavy from it all. He was in a bathrobe, as he had been all day, but the relatively fresh air eased his growing headache. He watched the skyline, though it did not change. He watched the sky, though it remained without stars. He watched as the smoke from his mouth blew and billowed and dissipated into the atmosphere, fleeting and ephemeral as he felt. He snuffed out the butt on his dirty brick wall and set it on the ashtray he kept at the window.

“I can practically hear your gears turning, Mr. Nelson,” Daredevil said. He had been on the balcony below Foggy, though he had no idea for how long. He was too tired to be shocked.

“I’ve been busy these last few days,” he shrugged. He reached into his jacket pocket to put another smoke between his lips, but Daredevil swung up into his space and stole the light from his fingers. Yelping in protest, Foggy reached forth, but Daredevil threw the lighter off the ledge, letting it clatter to the dumpster below them.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Foggy frowned.

“Neither is smoking,” Daredevil countered, settling down across from Foggy, unfurling his long, muscular legs in front of him. “You should really quit. Bad for the air.”

Foggy stuffed his smoke back in its pack and set it beside the ashtray. “I know. I used to have it as an excuse to leave the office for a few minutes, and now I think it’s the only thing keeping me from blowing my brains out.”

“Would it help to talk about it?”

“Perhaps,” he mused, though he didn’t say anything more. "Are you ready to be sued, yet?"

"Never.” He hadn’t worked on his statement at all, actually. He had been too wracked with guilt to progress beyond, ‘I’m sorry.’

Daredevil swallowed slowly, not knowing what he was allowed to ask of his friend. Eventually, he kicked at Foggy’s side. “I’m asking you to tell me about it,” he said.

The hope in his voice made Foggy laugh. “I’m suing you, I hope you realize. We’re not friends.”

Unfazed, the man shrugged. “And we never will be if you don’t open up.”

The night buzzed on without them. The stars continued to hide, and the sleeping insects continued to breathe. A dying rat was being eaten by a cat a block over. A mugging had just gone awry. It was Hell’s Kitchen as usual, and Matt and Foggy were stiff with each other.

“What do you think about homosexuals?” Foggy asked at last.

Daredevil balked at the unexpected question. “Well, I think they’re people, for a start,” he said carefully.

“It’s not easy for them, is it?” Foggy mused quietly. He had been having a lot of thoughts about homosexuals recently, and even before that, if he were to be honest. It didn’t lessen his fear at the word. Every time it reared its head, it felt like a dirty accusation towards him. He had never felt more Christian than when he heard the word.

“No, it’s not,” Daredevil agreed, as if he had given it some thought as well. “They deserve love as much as anyone. You would do well to remember that,” he said, and Foggy understood what people meant when they said that they had been saved by Daredevil. He felt wrong about it, because the last thing he wanted was to feel sympathy for the Devil.

“Sure.”

“They do,” Daredevil assured him, dusting himself off and standing up to make his leave. “And give me your cigarettes. You won’t chuck them yourself.”

He obeyed in a daze.

“Thank you, Daredevil. I’ll see you around.”

“See you around,” he echoed, and he jumped off the ledge.

-

Fisk tried one more time to off Karen.

Foggy had been able to get ahold of him from behind while she sprayed mace all over her attacker’s face for far longer than necessary. After notifying the police, the pair fled and landed in a heap in Karen’s apartment. They were breathing heavily, feeling the adrenaline course through them. Then they were magnets, drifting together. They kissed hungrily and fervently, landing on the couch disheveled.

Karen was close to angelic. The graceful fall of her golden hair, the fresh pink of her cheeks, the adoration with which she looked at him. Foggy found himself turning away from her, unable to face such a whole person.

“What is it?” she asked him, sobering when she realized he wasn’t reacting well. 

Foggy didn’t answer, so she tried to kiss his frown. He turned from her and whispered an apology. “You’re so beautiful,” he said wistfully, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“So are you,” she said, smiling and kissing him again. He let her this time, and she felt a triumph. “Just, relax, Foggy. You have to trust me.” She had seen who Foggy was. She had seen him be kind, and understanding, and patient. She wanted Foggy to trust her.

-

He closed his eyes to her lips on him, embarrassed that he couldn’t just enjoy her how she was, but not being able to look her in the eye when she loved him.

He came with a grunt, not a name, and when the excitement receded, he was left with Karen’s beautiful and hopeful gaze, dirtied and smiling at him.

“See? Not so bad, was it?” she said, reaching over to find a tissue to wipe herself off with.

Filled with desperate affection, he reached for her, wiping his shame from her face with his soft and clumsy hand. He chased it with his tongue, and she laughed, batting him away and calling him gross.

“Your turn,” he offered with a smile. He could will himself to love her. She deserved so much more than that half-consummated travesty, but it was what he could offer. He kissed her again and she sounded so pleased that he swore to himself that he would try, as long as he could, to make her happy.

Like many men he once considered a lesser, more ignoble species than he, Foggy clung to her body and tried to find atonement between her legs.

-

So they dated. Foggy brought her flowers, he offered to carry her bags, he leant her his coat and scarf. Dutifully, like a woman excited to be properly courted, she accepted these things. Foggy tripped over himself to make her feel pampered and adored because every touch felt like a betrayal.

Matt went quiet for a long while. None of them addressed Karen and Foggy's relationship. Matt, because he wished, despite the friendship that had formed between them all, that they would find some fault in each other and disentangle. It was a horrid fantasy and he prayed about it.

"How are you nowadays?" Foggy asked him one day, out of the blue.

Matt slumped at his desk and ran his hand through his hair. It was after hours, and Foggy had escorted Karen to the cab. It was a rare moment alone, and Matt found himself breathing out in relief. A tightness that he hadn't realized was there suddenly loosened as Foggy sat and focused all of his attention on Matt. 

"There's no reason to think that anything's changed for me recently," he said.

"No, I mean, are you happy?" Foggy clarified. He shrugged off his coat and placed it on the chair across from Matt. He sat down heavily.

Matt deflated and took his hands off of his keyboard. "I don't know, what would that even be like? I'm certainly content with a lot of things, but happiness sort of comes and goes, doesn't it?" Matt answered vaguely.

He was not happy. He would have been happier if Foggy would sit closer to him, or if he weren’t the type of person to hurt others, or if he were a fundamentally more complete and loving person. He would have been happier if the child across the street could contact protective services herself. The would have been happier if there were fewer needles littering the streets.

"Yeah, I guess I know what you mean,” Foggy said, looking out the window, though there was nothing to see. The world was as it always was. There was nothing revelatory about their little lives and the world did not care about the struggles of such a small man.

"Are you not happy?" Matt asked, as a good friend should.

Foggy shook all his troubles away with a wave of his hand. And just like that, he dispelled all the pent up self-consciousness he was feeling along with the regret and the longing. It wasn’t a part of him anymore.

"I am, I am,” he said. “Everything's great.”

"But…?"

Foggy crossed his legs, first one way, then another. He was embarrassed to admit to anything. Ashamed that he was selfish for wanting something other than the life he had now. "Nothing. Everything’s really good right now,” he said, though it wriggled in his soul. “I guess I feel like I'm missing something. Like, is this all there is? I always wanted to be helping people, but I'm feeling like any ol' bureaucrat nowadays." Foggy sighed, not really having talked about what he wanted to talk about. "That's adulthood I guess."

“Yeah, I get it," Matt nodded, unsatisfied by the conversation as well. "How's Karen?"

“She’s good.” The words were tight on Foggy’s throat. Something not quite a lie, but a guilty admission. She certainly seemed happy, but at what cost? Foggy felt like he was suffocating with the effort of giving her everything she deserved, and it was wearing at him. “You should ask her if you really want to know, though. I think she feels like you hate her.”

Matt’s face soured. It wasn’t fair, but it was also true. There was something about the way that she was slight and pretty and genuinely kind. All of these things that Matt cannot, could not ever offer. It hurt every day that of all people, she had to be Foggy’s first choice.

“Why would I hate her?” Matt tried, though his voice sounded alien to his ears, as if it were someone else speaking, someone better than his own indiscrete and obscene whole. Someone likeable. Someone who cared about his friends. Karen was his  _ friend _ , and he hated that he had to remind himself.

“I don’t know, Matt. Do you hate her? I can’t do much, but I can tell you that she most certainly doesn’t deserve to be hated.” 

“I know!” Matt nearly shouts, his guilt forming a tangible and razor-sharp pain deep in his gut. “I don’t hate her. I’ve just been busy, is all.”

"Come out with us," Foggy suggested.

Matt's face twisted. "I'm not a fan of third wheeling." 

The air was tense and adversarial again, and Foggy felt at a loss. He feared that Matt was drifting from him. A deep melancholy nostalgia hit him, then, reminiscent and longing for a time when there was nothing and everything between them.

“Think of it as me introducing my girlfriend to you, then,” Foggy said, though it came out shaky and uncertain. The thing between he and Karen had gone unspecified for so long that it jarred him to think about in such definitive terms. That’s a thing people do, Matt. You don’t have to love her, but at least talk to her like a person. If I’m going to pursue this, I want you guys to…” except he didn’t quite know what he wanted from them. He wanted the best for them, but if they were to start something genuine, then Foggy would be the one shakily keeping up a mask around them. He would be a weak link. “It would put me at ease if you got along.”

“Who says you have to keep pursuing her?” Matt said, snide. He hadn’t meant for it to come out. It was a stray thought, an uncooperative musing. Something awful to have said to his best friend, who was only trying to find happiness.

Foggy let out a frustrated noise. Matt had always said yes when Foggy suggested they do something. When had their friendship become so much obligation and so little affection? “I say, Matt. I  _ want _ to keep pursuing her.”

“And she’s good to you? She’s a good woman?” Matt asked, a husk of his courtroom bravado, a withered and defeated voice.

“She’s perfect,” Foggy told him. Her virtues always seemed endless, and Foggy realized that he was just sort of beside her, not quite being satisfied like some ingrate.

Matt shucked off his glasses and ruffled his hair, looking a wild, and, if Foggy were to put real words on it, he seemed sad.

“Okay, then,” Matt said at last. “I’ll do it, Foggy. If that’s what you want, Of course, I’ll accept that.”

-

When Matt considered his little, pathetic life in the grand scheme of it all, sometimes he wondered what made it all worth it. He wrapped his hands in rope, he wrapped his ribs in gauze. He vomited into his toilet, he bled into his sheets, he let out scream after agonized scream at the maze of pain and loss and rejection it had all become.

There were nice moments, sure. There was the occasional cry of glee or sigh of relief when someone realizes death had not yet come to collect. There were tired people with broken English offering him food. There were small moments, when his occupation took his mind to beautiful realms of possibility and new precedent, and he felt an immense and overwhelming hope, and he was awash in a feeling of pride that he had some part in fruiting it.

But then, reality would always rear its head in the form of yet more failure. The world was so full of suffering that he could never hope to remedy it all. Everything, at times, seemed futile, and he felt so infinitesimal, so impossibly small and inconsequential, that he wondered if his broken body was worth it.

Sometimes, he visited Foggy without his knowledge. The neighbourhood was not infinite, and he would find himself on Foggy’s roof.

That night, Karen was over. They laughed together, domestically, and the world that they inhabited together felt lightyears away. It was warm and small and unconcerned about things like Matt, lurking out in the chilled night air, aching.


	9. Chapter 8

The Kingpin towered over everyone else in the room. His height, his demeanor, his downturned lips the texture of rancid cottage cheese; they all seemed to suggest that he was otherworldly, something greater and darker than the human species could hope to imagine.

But beneath his silk tie and cotton boxer briefs, he was just a man. Mary knew this to be true in half a second, when he gazed at her for a short but uncomfortable moment, sizing her up and deciding whether she was worth it. It was a familiar feeling, and she had been feeling like that to lesser men her whole life.

“No deal,” she said when his assistant slid her a folder from across the polished desk. She saw a flash of blonde hair and hollow, steely blue eyes. It was all she needed to know she wouldn’t work for him.

“And why not?” Kingpin asked, baritone and gravel. Five guns shifted towards her.

Mary shrugged. “Just not feeling it, boss,” she explained, turning around and heading towards the door.

Mary’s life was often confusing and disorienting, and there was not a lot she knew definitively. Instead she held onto beliefs she wished to be true, and she chose to believe that Karen Page was not a villain.

“Are you sure I can’t make you reconsider?” A heavy briefcase opened between them. The pale fluorescent light shadowed the Kingpin’s face and his ugly snarl became ghastly in its shadows. The green of the cash was not any more enticing.

So she set the briefcase on fire.

“Like I said, I’m not feeling it,” she used the flame to light a cigarette and she blew a long string of smoke towards the looming figure. “I’ll tell you what you can do for me, though,” she said calmly, closing the melting briefcase and quelling the fire. It slammed shut with a deep thud. “Tell me what you want with Karen Page.”

-

There was a picture of Karen's family on the wall of the apartment that she inhabited but did not quite feel was hers. The photo looked as golden as any all-American family portrait should have: the three of them and the blue Vermont sky.

She was a cheerleader once, and even she found herself picturesque; she had been young and rosy-cheeked with a long blond ponytail behind her. Her mother and father, still together then, were a happy pair and they had had so much faith in her.

There had been justice, once. There had been fervor, and sincerity, and all the things she still searched for in every corner of this broken city.

There was discovery, and there was uncovery. And when she came forth from her shadow, armed with the truth and more than a spoonful of hope, she had been beaten into silence because no matter how much good was in the world, good was not meant to conquer. Good was for the birds. Good was for children. Good was for lovers and poets, and she was none of those things.

She was a person once. Now she was a cockroach, hiding from the vigilant thumb that would one day crush her.

There were heroes, though. She reminded herself that sometimes. Seared into her mind, there was the image of Foggy; he was heroic for a shining moment, with his tie askew and rancid fear colouring his soft and gentle features. The mess of his hair in the wind. A bloody two by four splitting at the place where it had hit her attacker.

“Run,” he had said. Without a second thought, she threw peeled off her high heels and she obeyed. He invited her into his home and made her tea that morning when the light finally shone and tinged everything with a crisp and airy yellow light. He kept her close, offering her work the next day. She decided that she felt safe by his side.

Karen Page made a little over minimum wage working for a law office with peeling walls and a fridge full of homemade sauerkraut. She watched as Foggy Nelson and his dutiful and mysterious partner took on case after case of the truly desperate and downtrodden.

There were heroes, and they would never make a dent in the monolithic evil that gathered in wealth.

It was easy to see how they could fit together as a family of sorts. She could see herself a wife to Foggy, as his spring-green tenacity would eventually give way to a deeper and more resilient focus. She could imagine herself on the sidelines. She could will herself to be content from the sidelines..

She had no nostalgia for the little girls and the young women she inhabited while growing into herself. They had only caused her problems. They had been too brash, too sure of themselves. She was grown now, and she could swallow her pride and become the woman she had always been training to become. She was nearing thirty, and it was time.

Her cell phone rang as her microwave sung out in shrill beats. She opened its door to the steaming vegetables inside, a travesty of a stir fry. She grabbed her cell phone, a lively block on her kitchen counter.

"Hello?" Mary said into her ear. "It's me. Mary. I just wanted to know if you'd be open to dinner with me sometime?"

She set aside her microwaved leftovers to walk around her barren apartment.

"Of course!" Karen said, taken aback by their suddenly changing relationship. "Whenabouts were you thinking?"

There was a brief pause and a shuffling noise. "How are you for fifteen minutes? I'm by Walker and Broadway and I'm ready to meet whenever."

It was so casual that Karen reeled again. Still, she craved it. It had been so long since she had felt safe being spontaneous.

She remembered the rush of cocaine in her blood and wondered when a dinner with a friendly acquaintance had usurped that high. "Sure! I'll head right out! Is there any place you want to meet in particular?”

There was a shuffle on the microphone, a hasty decision being made on the spot.

“What about Sammy’s Bistro? I’ll get us some seats.”

-

Matthew Murdock had brawled with all sorts in his day. He had the scars to prove it. Early evening in New York was a different sort of beast. It was the tail end of rush hour, but the raucous of voices and honking outside persisted. It mingled with the smell of exhaust and cigarettes.

Still, he listened to Foggy from the balcony, waiting for him as he always did, and tried not to nod off. 

He smoked as he chatted into his phone. “No, Mrs. Kim,” he was saying. “I’m afraid we’re going to need your family present if you want this done anytime soon. I know corporate types, and talking to your children through other lawyers is going to be a bureaucratic nightmare.”

A warbled, compressed voice answered back in deep sighs. “I’ll do whatever it takes, but I don’t know if having the kids in a meeting will be good for your sanity or mine.”

“I’m a professional, Mrs. Kim. You needn’t worry.”

The woman at the other end let out a sigh. “Well, I guess this is what I reap when I marry an older Wall Street guy with six kids.”

“I’m sure your kids love you.”

“They don’t, but I want to see them all before we’re not a family anymore.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

She sighed again, wearier this time. Exhausted even as her voice was staticky from the distance. “It’s ‘Ms.’ now, I suppose. He’s gone, so I guess I’m a single woman again.”

“Then I'll look forward to martinis when this is all over.”

She laughed thankfully and said a quick farewell before the line went dead. Foggy set his phone down on his coffee table.

Matt took the lull as an opportunity to climb down to Foggy’s balcony where he didn’t even flinch at the Daredevil’s acrobatic arrival.

"I’m guessing you’re not here with your statement." Foggy said at last, as he crushed the butt of his cigarette and set it on his ashtray.

“No,” he admitted anemically. There was a wet slosh in his suit where the knife had pierced him, and it was getting uncomfortably sticky. “I just,” he smirked, thinking of some inside joke with himself. “I just wanted to see you,” he snickered.

“And why is that funny?” Foggy asked dryly.

“It’s not!” Matt tried to frown, but the giggles refused to cease. “God, I can’t stop laughing.”

“Did you hit your head?” Foggy grew instantly concerned, and in a confused haze, Foggy’s hands found the hem of his horned cowl.

“No!” Matt panicked, catching Foggy’s hands in his and shaking his head which felt far too light. “No, I didn’t hit my head. But I did get stabbed, like, six minutes ago,” Matt said, lifting his shirt so that Foggy could see the bare and bloody flesh just under his ribs.

Foggy sighed gravely and opened the sliding glass wider. “Get in here, you fucking bastard.”

There was a lot of blood in the human body. So much blood that Foggy found himself wondering what so much liquid could possibly be used for. He wondered this as he watched Daredevil spill half the contents of his body onto his carpet and couch. It had been nice once, but now it was soaked through and sticky with a stranger’s deluginous blood.

“I don’t know how to do stitches,” he said uselessly. “Should I just call an ambulance?”

“No,” Daredevil ordered, a nasty grimace set on his face, or at least, what little of it was visible.

Foggy snorted derisively and picked up his phone. “No, you need medical assistance.” Daredevil knocked it out of his hand by throwing a pillow at him. It hit the carpet with a heavy thud.

“Do you have a needle and thread?” Daredevil asked, shifting to sit up despite all the  _ blood _ .

“Of course,” Foggy said blankly, grabbing his sewing kit from his emergencies drawer under his television but not understanding why the Daredevil would want to start fixing his costume when his pallor was starting to rival a ghost’s.

Unfazed, Daredevil yanked off his gloves to bruised knuckles and carefully, with such amazing dexterity, failed to thread the needle. Defeated, he held both the tiny piece of metal and the spool of thread to Foggy. In awe, Foggy completed the unspoken request, handing it back over just to watch as the Daredevil began sewing himself closed.

“It’s going to get infected,” Foggy protested, horrified. “That’s  _ cotton _ !”

“It’s actually a lot more polyester than you’d think,” the man shrugged, only wincing a little as he sank the needle into himself.

“They sterilize these things for a reason!”

“So get me your rubbing alcohol.”

-

The spoon in her hand clinked delicately as she swirled the sugar into her coffee. It was late for coffee, but Mary didn't seem to mind. She didn't seem to mind a lot if things as she sat across from Karen with wide, relaxed eyes and smudged eyeliner on her cheeks.

Karen had known about Mary. She had read through the file. She knew of her diagnosis, her employment history, and her alleged history with violence. But up until now, it had always seemed so distant, as if the Mary she had been reading about hadn’t been the same Mary that she knew, shining and cheery in front of her.

They converged in their little booth across from Karen. The woman had Mary’s face and her steady hands, but they were encased in something worldlier and angrier.

Then, Mary smiled at her and it was nothing if not familiar, and Karen came to understand that a woman can be two things, maybe more.

"You seem different," was Karen's misstepped comment.

Mary shrugged noncommittally, drinking the coffee deeply despite its heat. "Who says I'm not?"

Nodding, Karen took a bite of her pasta. The red sauce was metallic and overcooked, and it left a bad taste in her mouth. She chewed on regardless. "Fair enough."

"We're all a little different when watched by different people, aren’t we?”

There was the red sauce, bright and red. There was Karen, avoiding Mary’s oppressive gaze. “Do you mean anything specific by that?”

“Does ‘Kingpin’ mean anything to you?”

There was blood, metallic and warm. There was its steady rush to Karen’s ears.

“Why does he want you dead, Karen?”

Mary had her hands in her lap, now, leaning forward with a mean amusement. Karen swallows and drinks from her glass which has grown wet around the outside, perspiring.

“I put him in a compromising situation,” she answered carefully. “How do you know he wants me dead?”

“The fucker came to me to carry out the hit is how,” she said, leaning back and letting the space between them exhale. It set Karen’s heart into a double time beat and she paled. She calculated the distance to the nearest exit and reached for the gun in her purse. “I’m not going to do it, obviously!” she said, though Karen couldn’t bring herself to believe her quiet yet. Her grip tightened around the thick metal handle and let her fingers find the trigger.

“I’m serious, Karen!” Mary hissed. “I’m curious, sure, but I’m not going to hurt you. Drop the gun.”

Suddenly, for the first time, the gun felt truly lethal like a white-hot flame, and Karen let go, letting it fall into the recesses of her bag. Her hands landed in a heap on the table between them.

“I don’t need you to trust me, but I want you to. I want to protect you as much as I can.”

“Why?” asked Karen, narrowing her eyes at the almost-familiar form in front of her.

Mary sighed deeply and looked down at her own fingers, grimy and violence-swept. “Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t have a lot of friends? I know it’s irrational, and that we hardly know each other, but I know you’re good people and I want to do my part in preserving that.”

“We hardly know each other but you think you know that I’m good?” Karen echoed questioningly.

“Or maybe it’s been a long time since someone’s looked at me like you did.”

“And how’s that?”

Looking up, Mary met Karen’s gaze. Her deep and mournful eyes were the same as the ones Karen had seen as manic just moments before.

“Like I’m a person, Karen Page. Like I’m not just a victim or a monster. Like you don’t want to consume me or destroy me.”

Nodding, Karen said, “That’s a low fucking bar.” and it set them both chuckling.

Wailing, now, Mary laughed until her ribs hurt. “It is, isn’t it?”

When the laughter dissipated, they found that they were holding hands.

“I should tell you, I got the Kingpin off your back. I have the wounds to prove it.”

“Thank you,” Karen said, smiling. “I don’t know if it’s wise, but I believe you.”

“Thank you.” Mary sighed and held onto Karen’s hand tighter. “We should do this again sometime.”

“Maybe under lighter circumstances,” Karen joked. Mary barked at the truth of it.


	10. Chapter 9

Spending time alone, all the dark and ugly inside of Matt grew to fester and proliferate. Everything inside him seemed too full of grime and he was disgusted with himself.

He knew, objectively speaking, that he was the one in the wrong. Foggy was not owed to him. There were larger problems in the city, hell, there were things to address right in front of him. He had let the paperwork pile up on him in his emotional constipation, and it stagnated everything. He sighed, because he didn’t need yet another reason for Foggy to push him away. He reminded himself incessantly that love was capricious and unfair, and that this was simply the course of human suffering. He was not special in his pain, and he would not be granted anything for enduring it.

Karen tapped her fingers anxiously at her desk, and it bore into Matt’s mind. He stilled his rage with great effort, because she did not deserve it. He tried to focus on the work at hand, but then she started pacing the length of the office, righting little things that were entirely inconsequential. She rotated the succulents a few degrees. She wiped the kitchenette counter, she fiddled with the levelling of Foggy’s law degree on his wall.

He could ignore it, he could. But then she planted herself outside of Matt’s office with her hand almost, but not quite touching the door.

Eventually, she knocked on the open door frame, and Matt jolted from the unexpected loudness of it.

"Sorry," Karen said. "You seemed engrossed, but Foggy's not due back for a bit, and I have to ask: what's your problem with me?"

Matt narrowed his eyes behind his glasses and did not give her the courtesy of facing her. What was there to say? He knew he was in the wrong, but it didn’t stop the fact or immensity of his disquiet towards her.

He wasn’t denying it. She cleared her throat, emboldened, and continued to speak. "You haven't made any effort to speak to me since I got here. It's past growing pains, now. I feel like you hate me. Did I offend you? Because I swear I didn’t mean to."

"I wasn't aware that I made you uncomfortable," he said stiffly.

"It’s taken us weeks to convince you to come out with us," she said perplexedly. "You're always short with me, and you never initiate conversation. I just," she made a frustrated and pained sound. “You make Foggy happy, alright?” He bristled at the informality. “I’m really trying to make this work, but he’s not going to be pleased unless you’re there with him on all his decisions. I don’t need you to like me or anything. I know that’s a big ask. But if you won’t try for me, please, try to be civil for Foggy’s sake, because I really think I can make him happy.”

“Can you?” he snapped. He was showing too many cards, but he was beyond caring. He was the one who had been with Foggy to nurse his hangovers in undergrad. He was the one bringing him meals when they were interning at different firms. He was the one with whom Foggy had promised a life with, and their names were literally carved in stone next to each other on the door. They’ve devoted so much of their time at love to each other, and still, Foggy sought comfort elsewhere. If Matt could not make him happy, who was Karen to think she could take on such a task?

And worse, if she was right, what deficiencies were so intrinsic to his character that Matt couldn’t accomplish it?

“There’s no reason to be mean, Mr. Murdock,” she said, crestfallen and bitter. “I want to be there for him, and I don’t understand why you’re making it so hard for the both of us.”

Matt frowned. She wasn’t biting the bait.

"Did he tell you we've kissed?" he tried.

"Of course," she said, though she faltered. Lie. A glorious lie. "But he's not- he isn't…"

"What?" Matt hissed. "A queer? Maybe you should ask him." It was a classic bluff and he regretted it as he was saying it. Foggy wasn't. They would just laugh at it, and Matt would be left alone again, out of reach from wherever he was when Foggy and Karen sat in each others laps and laughed at Matt through the air they shared.

With miraculous timing, Foggy chose that moment to clamor in, carrying the rich onion smells of whatever he had bought them. Something greasy and sloppy. Matt’s stomach was already churning.

"Hello, firm! Lunch is served!" he sang brightly, oblivious to the tension in the room.

Karen eased out of her tension and made her way over to him to help with the bags. On her way, she kissed Foggy on the cheek possessively.

"Hey," Foggy said, voice dropping low and sweet.

"Hey yourself," she replied, just as adoringly.

Matt frowned at them, but neither of them noticed.

"I invited Mary to this Friday, is that okay?" Karen asked Foggy, and just like that, he was locked out of their world again. They were a unit, and Matt was not with them.

"Of course! The more the merrier! I didn't know you hung out outside of work."

They chatted on. Matt tried not to begrudge them that they didn't seem to notice his lack of participation. He wanted to try with them. He wanted the three of them to feel right together, but increasingly, he just felt further and further away from them. Inevitably, one of these days, they would realize it had been a long time since Matt had been necessary in their lives. He just hoped it would be amicable.

-

On Friday, they picked him up at 6:00 on the dot. Matt had dressed in his best satin suit and newly polished shoes. He had shaved with the single-blade razor. It was irrational. Both of them had seen him at his worst, bloodied and unshaven, unconscious in the hospital. Still, he wanted to look good for this. If nothing else, he wanted them to know that he didn’t need them, either.

He had no idea how Foggy pictured him, but he hoped that it was with the best parts of himself. He hoped he was handsome when he smiled, and he hoped that he was whip-sharp in court and conversation.

He wondered how often Foggy imagined him smaller, alone in his dark apartment, sitting at his desk and withering away farther and farther from his friend’s happy mind. Perhaps Foggy didn’t think of him at all very much these days.

“I forget how dark it gets here in the evenings,” he hears as Foggy fiddles with his keys, letting Karen into the apartment. When the seldom-used light switch gets flipped, her breath hitches, just slightly.

“It’s so sparse,” she comments quietly.

“Well, he hardly has reason for much wall art. And it’s practical to keep things orderly,” Foggy told her patiently.

Matt waited in his room, shaking his leg on the bed and fiddling with his cane. He hoped he had cleaned it thoroughly enough. He hoped there was nothing immediately incriminating in sight.

“Matt!” Foggy called, louder than was strictly necessary. “We’re here! Let me have a look at you!” He sounded so full of something bright and loving, as if there was not a thing in the world that was wrong, and it made Matt’s heart ache to know how wrong he was. Under the veneer of the crisp suit, who was he other than bruised and broken?

Under the suit, who was he other than the Devil, quietly ruining festering in shame and violence until it’s too late for the people he loves?

Dutifully, though, Matt stood up, took a deep breath and walked out to meet them, feeling more marionette than man, more devil than Murdock.

“You look good, Mr. Murdock,” Karen said first, and quietly. She was being honest. A bit more so than Matt would have liked, because underneath all the tension between them, she truly did want to like him. Matt admired her for it, her resilience for friendship in the face of repeated rejection.

So he smiled in her direction, and he tried to convince himself that it was genuine, too. “Thank you, Ms. Page. And please, call me ‘Matt’. All my friends do.” He held his hand out to take hers and placed a kiss on her knuckles. He could feel her uneasy tension through her fingers, and her disbelief in her murmuring heart.

They were so unalike, it was strange to think of her occupying the same world as he did.

“I’m really trying,” Matt told her hushedly as Foggy moved about the room. He stopped to straighten the one piece of wall decor he had, a gift from Foggy ages ago. “I would very much like to be friends, Ms. Page. Forgive me for being so untoward, I’ve been dealing with some personal things.”

“Okay,” she said warily, slipping her hand out of his grip. It was small and delicate. Her fingers tapered lithely, uncalloused. He let go of her hand, and as he did so, he tried to gain a picture of her as she was, free from who she was to Foggy. It occurred to him that she deserved love as well, and he was thoroughly convinced that Foggy was the best sort of man to offer that sort of thing.

It would hurt less, eventually. All of his wounds healed in the end, did they not?

“Then, please, call me ‘Karen’. We’ve been in each other’s company half a year, I’m sure we’ve reached a first name basis.”

Matt shook his head free of dark thoughts. She had been nothing if not polite and thoughtful to him. “Yes, of course, Karen. It would be my pleasure.”

Just then, Foggy’s turned and hummed at them. “Don’t get all sweet on my girl now, Matthew. We know it wouldn’t be the first time,” Foggy chided, a little nervously. He hated to trigger Foggy’s jealousy. At least, not like this.

Matt stilled and tensed, but before he could speak, Foggy took his place at Matt’s right side, guiding Matt’s clammy hand to his elbow and patting it amicably. Matt’s racing heart hardly had the time to trip before the moment was over, and the three of them became a friendly trio. Matt let himself ease into the idea.

So the three of them walked out together. Matt to the left, Karen to the right, and Foggy, a buffer between them. The unspoken things between them hadn’t vanished, but they lay suspended somewhere above them all. Their shiny shoes and sequins were as good a shield for them, protecting them from the insecurity and animosity and unrequited sentiment that threatened to take them all. They looked like the sort of people who would have been happy, and for the night, at least, they figured they would be.

-

The dinner was marvellous as well. The food was spectacular, a rare treat of fresh, fatty meats and complexly bitter-sweet combinations that salted their tongues and made the meals dance in their mouths. The wines were young and cheery, and the winter cider was beautifully spiced and warm to their giddy throats. The laughter was brilliant and genuine, and even Mary, who had never seen so much light in one space, eventually warmed to the room, and she had been the first to tap her feet to the small orchestra of strings playing something jazzy and smooth.

“We should dance!” Mary exclaimed, a rose tint on her cheeks from the drink that warmed her gut. “Karen, would you like to dance with me?”

Karen laughed brightly, leaning heavily onto Foggy’s side. “As much as I would, I think the song’s a little romantic, isn’t it?”

Mary blew a raspberry into the air and turned to Matt instead. “Mr. Murdock? What do you say? I think you’d be rather groovy if you gave yourself the chance.”

He was happy. As happy as he could remember, though he realized that it wasn’t a very high bar. Still, there were general jovialities in the air, and he was the right amount of buzzed that he was a little disoriented and would not have minded a warm body to share music with.

“I don’t see why not,” he said, and with a dazzling smile that was more mirth than teeth. He held out a hand and Mary grabbed it happily, leading them both to the dance floor.

Bodies around them moved with a confident sort of flourish. The kind that people get when they know they wouldn't be judged for anything they do. The venue was intimate and elite as much as it was classy and unattainable. It was the sort of place Matt’s father would have ridiculed for being uppity, the sort of place the both of them would have quietly pined for as they portioned their canned beans and tomatoes.

Mary and Matt were half a beat off-tempo. Neither of them minded it, though, and they shared a camaraderie born from the understanding that they had shared a similar sort of past, Mary with her poverties and Matt with his. They had both been hurt by the institutions that promised them better, but they were amongst the wealthy and uninhibited for the moment, and they could pretend they belonged there.

"So what's up with you and Foggy?" She asked at last, when the orchestra had finished their tune. Karen had invited Foggy up for the next dance, and he had been frowning in their direction.

"What do you mean?" Matt asked, shaking himself out of what wasn’t his business.

"You’ve been pouty about your partner and Karen all night. Are you sweet on his girl or something? Your face is so sour when they act all cute."

"No, no. Nothing like that.”

"Are you sweet on Foggy, then?"

He choked on a cough.

“Oh,” she said. A flicker of realization ran through her body.

“Please don’t tell him,” he coughed, steadying himself on the wall.

“No, it’s not that. I just realized that you’re Daredevil. Neat trick.” she stated coldly. 

He sputtered some more. “No, that’s not-” he started, though he quickly came to realize he had no way to defend himself out of that one. He didn’t know quite what she knew, and therefore no way to explain himself out of it. “How do you figure that?”

But she hadn’t known. Not for sure, anyway. She had gathered pieces from her limited knowledge (and her knowledge was always so limited. She wished she knew half of what her body got up to when she was away). But she had the advantage of always being guarded and suspicious.

Her observations were thus: the litigation against Daredevil had been going exactly nowhere. When he had first met Mr. Murdock, he had been beaten near to death, and the pained look of guilt he had been harbouring hadn’t lightened once his wounds healed. But there were new injuries. She had been staring at his bloody knuckles and bruised neck for the entirety of their dance. He avoided moving in ways that made him wince.

And now, she was beginning to understand that he was irreconcilably in love with Foggy Nelson, and that he didn’t particularly want to be. He had been feeling guilty about it, but the way it almost felt like he could see them, or hear what Foggy and Karen were up to even from a great distance away, the idea sprang forth in her mind. It was amusing, and when she had said it, lips loose from the drink, she had expected Mr. Murdock to laugh.

He did not laugh.

For a second, she was disgusted and betrayed. She had trusted them, and she had gone to Matt on that first day, really hoping that they were committed to justice. She felt suddenly like a fool, walking into his manipulation. Perhaps the case would never have gone anywhere, and perhaps he would have been able to keep tabs on her indefinitely, the sucker that she is. 

Then, she felt white-hot fury for the coward who was unwilling and unable to face the consequences of his own reckless vigilantism. (And wasn’t it just  _ great _ that it was always some man eschewing responsibility? What other sort of creature could ever believe it was justified in such a self-righteous pursuit? Had he no shame?) His face was so fallen, and he looked hurt. (And why? Why would he be the one hurt by such an accusation? Had it not been she that had to will her bones back into place? Had it not been she who dragged herself out of the worst pits of despair and the fracturing of her soul because of a stupid mistake made by this incorrigible man in front of her?)

Then, feeling cold, she felt nothing at all for the man in front of her, and she took a step back, shoulders shaking.

“I take it back. I don’t want to sue Daredevil anymore. We’re done. Don’t ever contact me again.” Abruptly, she stood up and made her way outside. “You have blood on your shirt, Murdock. I think you split a few stitches. I’m going to say goodbye to Karen.”

Matt palmed at his side, feeling the wetness of his good satin and feeling like a fool for believing that he could have had a happy moment. He buttoned up his vest and jacket, both of which had come undone between his first sip of wine and his fifteenth. He remembered those moments, how full they were of warmth, and wished for them again.

Staggering upright, he chased Mary to the golden pair of lovers, obliviously swaying to the plucky piano. Mary tapped Karen’s shoulder and tried to smile.

“Karen! I’m not feeling too well, so I think I’ll head out soon. Do you mind if I ask for a dance before I leave?” she said pleasantly. “I think the next one’s going to be pretty jaunty.”

“Of course!” Karen replied, extricating herself from Foggy and turning a concerned look towards Mary. Mary led her away and farther into the crowd, where they blended and mixed and disappeared amidst all the other bodies. 

Matt found Foggy with some difficulty, but eventually, he reached out and found his fine tweed. “Dance with me,” he gasped, grabbing Foggy’s hand and feeling dizzy.

“What’s going on? Is Mary okay? Are you?” Foggy asked, pulling Matt out of the dancing crowd.

“Fine,” he said. “We’re just feeling a little under the weather. Just dance with me before I leave, please.” He sounded desperate, but he didn’t care anymore. He could be dead by the end of the night, and he needed a good memory to bring with him to Hell.

“Matt? There aren’t any men dancing together on the floor,” he said self-consciously. It was true. There were pairs of women, gleefully two-stepping with friends, and there were couples, but there were no pairs of men, cradling each other fondly to the singing violins.

“And there will be once we get on the floor. Please, Foggy.”

The uncertainty was palpable. He did not know what Foggy would find out about him after the song was over, and he did not know how these things would be revealed to him. He did not know how Foggy would react to what he would find out. He did not know if Foggy would ever forgive him for anything. There was so much that Foggy could have been more comfortable never knowing.

The dance, which would only be a few minutes at most, would be the last sure thing he had with his best friend. He wanted the moments to be sweet, he wanted to bask in the surety of Foggy still loving him before it would leave him forever. He gripped onto Foggy’s hand tighter, and his face must have been pleading very hard, because even though Foggy seemed unbearably uncomfortable, he just sighed and nodded his head.

“Alright, let’s dance.”

They were out of step with each other, mismatched in their internal tempos. Foggy was slow and sturdy, and Matt was quick and panicked.

He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t make out the conversation between Karen and Mary; they were too jumbled up amidst the other clamour, and he was drunk and bleeding. Foggy was at his fingertips, and even he sounded muddled and far away. Moving closer, Matt rested his head on Foggy’s shoulder, though it made the other man tense. He should have cared, but he was so certain that Foggy would hate him shortly, so he let himself indulge. Their hip bones were almost touching, and Matt’s hands found the small of Foggy’s back. It was a place his hands had never been until now, not consciously anyway. He tried to memorize its slope, the feeling of his jutting vertebrae under the layers of fabric and skin.

“Matt, what are you doing?” Foggy asked, somewhere between confusion and panic. Somewhere between curiosity and desire, Matt told himself. Perhaps it could be true if he hoped it hard enough.

Unthinking, Matt tilted his face upward, landing with his lips on Foggy’s.

There were gasps, and Foggy pushed him away.

Matt fell backwards, towards a wall. He let himself be thrown and collapsed in a heap, feeling small and lost. His hands were so empty, he realized, now that his last and dearest companion had abandoned him. He collected his breath for long moments as the crowd surrounded him.

“Sir, are you okay?” a voice asked, and he did not recognize it.

An unfamiliar hand checked his vitals.

Sirens sounded, and he became aware that he was, once again, being shipped towards a fucking hospital.


End file.
